Quote:
Originally Posted by CaptT820
... As others have said, the ledger board is by far the most important item on a deck as far as strength of connection to the house and flashing to prevent rot.
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A good alternative way to attach a ledger, if you have access to the rim board inside the house, as would be the case with new construction, is with Maine Deck Brackets (
http://www.deckbracket.com/). They through-bolt to the rim board. I used them for our deck for two reasons. First, the base plates are very easy to flash dependably against leakage after being bolted through to the rim. Also, if at some point down the road you have to rebuild the deck, including the ledger, you simply unbolt the ledger from the outer flange of the bracket. With a ledger bolted/screwed to the rim and with flashing out over the ledger itself, you have to do major surgery on the house structure. Another advantage to using the deck brackets might be if you have vinyl siding. Having a ledger bolted directly to the rim at an inconvenient height with respect to where the siding laps go might be a problem, because you can't fasten the ledger to the rim with any siding sandwiched in between.
Depending on the height of the deck relative to the top of a concrete foundation, another way to build the deck might be to avoid a ledger completely. I did this on another house, which did have vinyl siding. I had several beam pocket brackets welded up for me, and which I bolted to the foundation below the bottom of the siding. Those supported beams coming out perpendicular to the wall. The beams in turn supported the joists for the deck, which ran parallel to the wall. There was no interruption of the siding at all, and thus no flashing issues.