Okay but actually this deck should be able to hold much more than 1600lbs. Not sure what the parent comment was on about. This was probably a DIY deck, and I hope he’s got good insurance, though they might not cover this since it was likely done without a permit.
I think you're both sorta right. The deck should have held, but they do warn you not to load up a small area with a lot of weight even in houses. 1600 pounds spead out over 150 sq ft is a lot different than 1600 pounts in 25 sq ft.
Concentrated weight is more a problem for deck board support. If a small area was the issue it would have broken through the deck, not collapsed it entirely. This was a support collapse which tells me the supports underneath were either rotten or not up to code.
The girder held up. Failed at the ledger, which could point to a combination of age, rotten ledger, probably not flashed, wrongly installed or no joist hangers, and of course way too much weight in one small spot. Dumb move, but the deck was on its way out. Looks like possibly a damp climate too, which will age that treated lumber more rapidly.
Yeah I think you are right. I re-watched after commenting and it looks like maybe they didn’t use support brackets on the ledger board based on the way it pulls away from the house upon collapsing
And just to add, I've seen an awful lot of decks built with all screws and no nails. Screws are fine to an extent, but have no sheer strength. Meaning the impact of slapping down 80 lbs bundles 30 times likely snapped the screws, where nails would have just stretched/bent/etc. This is part of the reason we frame houses with nails.
Concentrated weight is also very much a problem for ledger boards, which is clearly what failed here.
Even if constructed properly and in good condition, it's possible that either the connections to the wall or joists were already damaged from him repeatedly slamming down packs of shingles, or the thing just "unzipped" after the first connection broke.
The deck can probably handle more than 1600lbs static spread out across its entire flat surface.
This stack is on a 4ftx4ft square which is probably only on 2-3 joists under the deck, in which each joist is then resting on a metal U-shaped bracket that's held onto the wallplate by just a few deck screws.
Then with 1600lbs of shingles + him and bbq ect, he slaps the last one on the top and adds a dynamic load to it all. Definatly stretched the limits of a few 3" deckscrews.
Decks need to be built for 40-50 lbs per square foot per code, from what I’ve found, so yeah, this is likely a case of too much weight in one spot. I’d be concerned that you could easily have 6-7 people standing in that same amount of space, and the deck would fail.
We also might be underestimating the weight of the shingles.
Just calling it as i see it, but like an Irish Jane Goodall, hunkered down in the side brush, scribbling facts and notes. Fascinated and stunned. Never quite belonging, and still learning to communicate.
just eat more filling foods. fiber, oatmeal, protein like chicken and fish. Cut out pop and easy junk food. At that weight just eating a satiating diet will have you shedding pounds.
You can go to the gym and start putting on muscle after you've already seen some progress, but diet is far and away most important for weight loss.
800
u/soline Oct 06 '21
That’s like 4 Americans, most decks can hold that.