Taking Cedar to the Max

The existing deck was attached to the house using one of the most idiotic methods I have ever seen and which I won't try to explain in detail.  It was a mess and was causing the mortar joints in the brick to crack, as well as allowing endless penetrations that insects were using to make their homes in the walls.

To make a long story short there was no ledger to attach to and the basement was recently  finished so smashing everything open on the inside to try to attach to the rim board was not an option.  Even if we could have I still can't think of a way to attach it without compromising the brick cladding over time.So.....the deck is completely independent of the house.  This was an more expensive option but there was no other choice really as attaching to the brick would have been disastrous over time. You will notice in the pictures there are a series of 6X6 columns right next to the stone cladding.  These support a flush beam that the joists are attached to with galvanized joist hangers.  The columns themselves bear on concrete piers that run all the way down to pads below the frost line, right next to the existing footing.

At the exterior dropped beam the joists were toe-nailed just to hold them in place, and then fastened using Simpson Hurricane ties, like the ones on page 15 of the following Simpson Deck Connection Guide.  We used the H2.5 product although either of the ones shown on that page would have been fine.  I don't think these ties were in place at the time the pictures were taken.

Also, rather then buy the Simpson post/beam connections we had them made at the local steel fabricator at about half the cost and with a thicker gauge of steel.  It took them 3 days to make them all which was well worth the phone call.

http://www.strongtie.com/ftp/fliers/F-DECKCODE09.pdf

http://www.strongtie.com/deckcenter/index.html?source=topnav