balcony delema

onthelevel

good day all, i would appeciate any suggestions on a glitch that has me stalled on a cantalevered balcony repair\reno,balcony consists of 23, 2"x 10" canatalevered floor joists on 16" centers,with 45" canted over,balcony is approx 20 years of age and was in poor condition due to rot, i have made satifactory repairs to joist ends and am in the process of installing a 2"x12" joist header to secure to 2"x10" joists,all joist ends are not of the same height, but apppear to be within one inch of each other over the lenght of the balcony (30'), my delema is, when i install the joist header(which i was going to use two 15' - 2"x12"s, to meet on centre of the balcony lenght),when i attach on end of 15' on centre of the balcony and one to end @ balcony edge, i am approx 1-1\4" off level, any suggetions on what options one may have to make this header as level as possible over a 15' span?,or which two joists should be chosen to level off of?, suggetions would be greatly appreciated as to this point i am pretty happy the way this project has turned out, thanks.

BuiltByMAC

Stringline your joist ends.
Figure out:
a.] if the entire thing is tilted or
b.] if all the joists are not level (they come out of house at an angle) or
c.] if the joists are actually different heights (one is 9 1/8", another is 9 7/8")

If it's [a], you've just got a tilted deck. 1" over 30' is not going to have people stumbling around on a topsy, turvy deck.

If it's [b] or [c], the following should get you moving again (Hell, this will even work w/ [a])...

Start by fastening your rim joist (what you call a joist header) at one end of the deck joists. Temporarily support the other end. Move down the row, fastening each joist to the rim joist. Move the free end (of the rim joist) up and down to align the tops of the joists w/ the top of the rim joist. Continue until you get to the end. At this point, you should be able to "sight" down the top of the rim joist and see all the joist tops level w/ each other. Terminate your rim joist on a joist end and nail a 2x10x18" block to that joist end to fully "catch" the end of your second rim joist.
Attach your second rim joist at the middle of the deck at the same height as your first rim joist and continue down the line, lining the tops of your joists w/ the top of the rim joist.

Mac

onthelevel

some times (most times) my enthusiasim surpasses my experiance,thanks for taking the time to help.

take care.