Decks, Patios, Porches and Docks - lefger will have to be bolted to concrete?

I started putting up ledger and ran into several problems. Let me first say that my original house is 109 years old and we put on a very large addition. We are trying to keep the new covered porch/deck at same height as the original. So if it seems a little strange, you know why.

First problem I had was the poured concrete foundation molds must have have a lot of dents in them and there were some large bumps in concrete. Not too big a deal as I took my grinder with diramond wheel and smoothed out some to give me a flatter surface to put up ledger.

OK, so when I put ledger up (with nails temporarily) and allowed for height of the decking (using Azek), I found that quite a bit of ledger has concrete behind it and not wood. I had planned on through bolting the ledger. But there is only 2 1/8" of ledger from top to where the sill plate sits. and then a 1 1/2" sill plate and then concrete below that. Since you don't really want to bolt to the very bottom of the rim (fear of it splitting out) I don't know if I can adequately secure the ledger unless I use something like a wedge-all into the concrete. see photo. note that it was taken from an angle so the line on wood does not line up with the concrete. If I put bolts 1" below the top of ledger (which will be about 1 1/8" from bottom of rim joist) would this be acceptable? note that they would all have to be at same level and since so close to edge of ledger and rim, I just don't really think this will work without drilling into concrete. think I should stagger them with one going 1" below top of ledger into rim and then next going into concrete? or is that 1" unacceptable? can I put it into the sill plate?

note that this is with deck being flush with the concrete slab in front of house. This will leave me with about a 4 1/2" step into the rear of house. inspector was OK with this and this is about what we have in front also (slight difference since the house is so old and original part is not exactly level). it has never been problem with tripping since you are at obvious doorway. I could move deck up from slab making less of step into house, but then I would have step at concrete/deck interface also. so potential trip hazard there cause I could only move it up about 3 1/2" to 4" since I would still need deck to be lower than rear door.

http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e311/hammerash/DSCN5582.jpg

You wouldn't have ANY of these problems if the deck were free-standing, but it's not, so let's deal with it.

The upper portion of the ledger can be bolted to the rim joist. The lower portion can be attached to the concrete stem wall with redheads. Put a SPACER between the ledger and the wall (once the bolts or redheads are in) so that the thickness of the spacer can be varied to compensate for the variations in the concrete.

Good choice on the Azek. Have you looked into Fasten Master's Cortex screws to install it with?? A little extra labor (hammering in the plugs), but the finished look is worth it's weight in gold, ESPECIALLY if you take the extra time to line up the grain of the plugs with the grain of the deck board!!

I can't say that I have seen a freestanding deck right next to house? But haven't looked a whole lot. I thought they were always attached to the house? I guess you would need twice as many footings if it were free standing. I solved the irregular concrete with my grinder with diamond wheel. It does great job at shaving down concrete and it is pretty even now. I have temp fastened another board and am ready to do the last one on this side tomorrow.

So how far down from top of ledger do I through bolt it to rim? I figure that I don't want to go near the rim/sill junction since I need to get a washer and nut on the end of the bolt from inside. So the center of the bolt has to be above the sill by a minimum of 1/2 diameter of washer. But that means that the top bolt will only be about 1" from top of ledger? Is that acceptable? I could go lower if I use ledger loks. But I don't know if inspector will allow that since I have access to through bolt it.

have not looked at bolt for deck yet. Once I get ledger on, the deck will be taking backseat so I can work on rest of addition. I need to get ledger on so I can flash it (using preformed vinyl) and then I can get siding guy out to redo the siding that I removed when I had to move a window in the addition since there wasn't room for my fireplace.

hammerash,

The majority of the decks that I build are free-standing. They may be several feet (or a LOT of feet) away from the house, or they may right up next to the house. You can't tell whether it's free-standing or not based on the distance it is from the house wall.

Yes, you need one extra row of footings in order to make it free-standing, but that becomes a trade-off. By making it free-standing, I don't have to deal with flashing a ledger to the house wall, and flashing a ledger has become a HUGE liability, given a very well publisized number of deck failures in the past 5 or 10 years because the wall-to-ledger connection failed.

Granted, I'm in the warm part of CA, so frost isn't an issue. The footings I use are shallow. Unless I'm on a significant slope, my footings are only 12" deep.

A row of footings about 18" to 24" from the house wall, cantelver the joists to the house wall (or about 2" from it) and a rim joist paralleling the wall, and let the deck boards overhang the rim joist so that they are almost touching the house wall -- free-standing!!