JLC Online: For years, 4x4 posts had been used to support decks with little thought to how much load the posts were carrying or how tall the deck was. That changed in 2015, when Section R507.8, a prescriptive method for sizing deck posts, was included in the 2015 International Residential Code.
2 comments:
Wow! I never realized so much thought went into building a deck. It does make sense, as I can’t imagine the disasters and injuries that have occurred due to people using lumber that was too thin or not strong enough to support a load. Or, a situation where the deck was close to water and the area flooded or there were issues with the soil. These new regulations are highly specific, and the chart is easy to understand. If you choose not to follow the very simple instructions given, you put yourselves and others at risk. At the same time however, decks have been built one way for a long time, especially based on the type of lumber available in the area, so I imagine people are unwilling to change. I also never knew there were codes for something so specific, but again this makes sense, such things are important.
This reminded me of a conversation my local had recently in our rigging mini about the changing standards of wire rope, aircraft cable and specifically how to properly use a micropress to create a termination on the rope, there’s a lot of things in theatre, and I guess a lot of general construction, that I assumed have been static for years but I’m happy to see here that rules for construction are still under review and being update, part of me really enjoys the idea also there is a team of people who spent a couple of years testing different woods or recording large amounts of data on wood supporting whole decks to ensure that this information would lead to safe decks, because this whole system seems very thorough and pretty clear on the different situations that could arise because of type of wood or location you are in and much more accurate than a general rule as you can actually understand how to adjust it. I wonder how much these rules will change though and if experienced companies already had some understanding through folk physics and experience on whether they would need more wood or better wood in certain climates, especially if they were bassed there.
Post a Comment