Just saw this video online: http://www.today.com/video/today/54505396/#54505396
Does anyone have anymore information about this? From the video it looks like the outside edge sheared off from the posts?
Looks like the failure was the fasteners at the post.
I live in southern Indiana, I haven’t heard about this one.
Another one recently in Columbia, MO. This one appears to have walkways made of concrete, and were old. I bet rebar rusted.
Sure does, stop video at 19 seconds.
Agreed, the builder is in trouble.
This is why sandwiching the beam/s against one or more sides is not a good idea. Notch it so it is bearing on the post.
Especially when fastening beam to post with only a few 16d sinkers.
Yep, just reported on that today. Freestanding deck and the whole thing was racked to one side by about 4". Only nails in the beam ends and no cross bracing. Amazing.
The OPs story could have ended a lot worse.
Here is the story from one of the family members.
Good lesson for some deck builders.
Jim Campbell
Good night. That thing was attached to brick veneer and it doesn’t appear the joist hangers were toe nailed at all. When it collapses, the rim joists/beams literally just fall away.
I was privy to a deck class a few years back & it was then that I realized 99% of the decks I see are constructed wrong. The course was not only eye opening for me but also scary.
I had heard that the deck code requirements will soon change to require all decks to be free standing.
The deck in Indiana was wrong in many ways and it was only a matter of time. Unfortunately there are tens of thousands of these out there.
Write hard…
Agreed Kevin as the same is very apparent here. I still can’t believe what used to be accepted practice.
Sorry to dredge up an older post like this.
But this past summer I constructed three decks onto the rear and side of my home.
One is off of my rear porch with an elevation of 6 ’ from grade, the second is a smaller deck that carries our hot tub / spa and is 3’ above elevation, and the third is off the rear second story of my home with a set of stairs down to the main deck.
The Local Building Code Inspector provided me with his “Handbook” of construction methods to be used from the footings up, and the main instructions of “IT HAS TO BE A FREE STANDING STRUCTURE”.
My home was built in 1945 and has a brick veneer at the location where the upper deck meets my home. The footings at that point had to be at the elevation of my homes footing since they were within 5’ of the home. That was a depth of 8 1/2 feet below grade. (frost line in this area is 36 inches)
A little side note on this Gentleman is he is the Person called on Deck Collapse in the Southwestern PA Region
Here is a link to the Design For Code Acceptance from the American Wood Council (His “Handbook”)
http://www.awc.org/publications/DCA/DCA6/DCA6-09.pdf
A lot of great information for what to look for when inspecting a deck.