Deck Joists

wrecked

i'm having a new deck installed on my house that's 12' deep and 20' wide. The ledger is the 20' side. the contractor is suggesting that he can do standard 12' decking by running the joists parallel to the ledger board. i disagree. my thinking is that the deck will have nowhere near the stability it needs without have the joists installed at right angles to the ledger board. thoughts?

Ron6519

The stability of the deck has nothing to do with it's relationship to the ledger board. The stability has to do with the substructure and it's relationship to the deck boards. The decking needs to be installed perpendicular to the joists.
Ron

wrecked

thanks ron. i guess tying the deck to the house is less important than the forums, etc. would infer

Ron6519

I do not know what this means. "Forum" information can often be useless information.
This forum is no exception.
Ron

Joe Carola

What the contractor is doing is done all the time. He can run double joists at each end with a double joist hanger. He can run a double or triple joist 10' in to the center perpendicular off the ledger with double/triple joist hanger out to a girder 12' out running the 20' direction.

Now you run 10' joists in between the two outside doubles into the center double/triple joist parallel to the ledger. Now your 12' decking runs perpendicular off the house and ledger. This is normal every day framing.

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Joe Carola

wrecked

many thanks joe

Gary in WA

If worried about stability, at least build to minimum Code: http://www.lancova.com/deckinfo.pdf
Add some diagonal flat steel strapping to the bottom of the joists, tying to the ledger in an "X pattern.

Be safe, Gary

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