Thread: Deck step support

Can anyone tell me what is holding these steps up?
Something is not right here.

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JM: It looks like about 1-1/2" of the top of each stringer, and maybe the top tread is toenailed into the deck. They need to, at a minimum, add hangers to the stringers in order to support this, or they will someday regret it. It should, ideally, be rebuilt.

Originally Posted by A.D. Miller

JM: It looks like about 1-1/2" of the top of each stringer, and maybe the top tread is toenailed into the deck. They need to add hangers to the stringers in order to support this, or they will someday regret it.

JM I'm going to have to adjust my faith in prayer, it appears to work!

If you need somthing to use as a ref. on how it should be, here is a PDF with straps on pg. 11.

(Didn't see AD's pic on first look?)

Great info!!

The builder of this deck used minimal 4x4 supports which seem to always bend or lean with the bigger decks. Two of the main supports are out of plumb and the piers are not level.
Here are the other steps, one more board added..
And the supports.. It needs to have some rebuilding done..

The deck in the second set of photos is unsafe. There is no positive attachment of the three outside posts to the piers or to the beam, no uplift restraint, the posts are way out of plumb and one pier appears to have rotated. That's in addition to the obviously unsafe stairs. What a mess.

Originally Posted by Bruce Breedlove

.
The deck............... is unsafe.
. What a mess.

And the railing support post are toe nailed to the top.
no way the railing will support a lateral load.
.

http://www.awc.org/Publications/DCA/DCA6/DCA6-09.pdf

The Prescrptive Residential Wood Deck Construction Guide is another useful reference.

Could be the angle of the picture, but the cantilevered length looks questionable.


Bruce, good link, thanks.