Building a Strong Deck for Your PA Home requires BOLTS not Nails

Weak connections between decks, porches, and balconies and the house to which they’re attached is probably the primary cause of collapses of these structures in the United States. Just a couple days ago, a deck that was being put onto some apartments in Lawrenceville, PA suddenly collapsed sending two workers plummeting three stories to the ground. They remain hospitalized with serious injuries. Our deck collapse lawyers note that the inspectors found that the deck was nailed to the main building, not bolted.

Nails will not adequately secure a Deck to a Building; You must use Bolts

Our deck collapse lawyers emphasize that nails cannot properly anchor a structure like a deck or a balcony to the residential building to which it’s attached. Nails will shear off and pull out when weight is applied to the structure they’re holding up. Then the deck will collapse with its occupants to the ground, sometimes with serious or fatal injuries.

But bolting a deck on won’t always keep a deck or balcony from collapsing either. A solid deck requires a ledger board between the deck and main building to help diffuse the structural stress and distribute the weight put on the structure. The ledger board and connections to the main residential building need to be protected with “flashing” to keep water from leaking in and rotting the structure and corroding the hardware connections.

You need to make the connection at a proper bad joist. If you don’t anchor the outdoor deck into a main structural member, but just send a bolt into random drywall, that deck is going to fall off the building at the first opportunity anyway.

Exterior Post Supports could help Safely Anchor Your Deck

As additional insurance against deck collapse, you should add exterior posts attached to the main building to support the deck. That way, the deck and deck ledger would have additional support upon which to exert any downward stress which could help prevent it from shearing out nails or bolts instead.

But our deck collapse lawyers understand that property owners don’t necessarily think about engineering or stress issues when they put up a deck. They think about aesthetics and recreation. And building codes, which may specify that a deck need to support a 40 psf live load and 50 psf with the dead load of the structure itself won’t tell you how to accomplish this. So you get profit conscious buildings blithely putting up apartment decks with NAILS rather than lag bolts.

Continue to Part 2 to learn what happens after shoddy construction and what to do if you or a loved one get injured in a disastrous deck collapse.