With winter approaching and our best days on the deck behind us why should deck maintenance be a concern now? Industry experts recommend decks should be deep cleaned twice a year for both appearance and determination of the repairs needed. Scheduling these bi-annual inspections in fall and spring provides a routine ensuring sufficient time to maintain occupant safety and reduce liability for the association.
Decks are ranked as one of the highest structural failure liabilities in a condo community. Occupant injuries from failed railing and elevated deck collapses are far more likely than foundation or roof collapses. Most deck collapses are the direct result of inadequate attachment to the building, that is, the connection between the deck ledger and building band joist. The U.S. Forest Products Laboratory recently completed a study of five years of newspaper articles from around the country reporting collapsed decks and showed “nearly every collapsed deck had been attached with nails, rather than bolts, and investigators had pinpointed nails as the cause of the collapse.”
These types of findings have resulted in building code and deck construction best practices to change. In April of this year, the state amended its Maine Uniform Building and Energy Code (MUBEC) requiring secure bolting methods for connecting decks to the building’s structural framing. Thirty years ago, many decks were secured to buildings using nails that rust away or simply do not have the lateral holding power of bolts. Deck attachment problems are often not noticed in casual visual inspection because the ledger boards are hidden behind the facade siding. Past deck building practices compounded the problem by not protecting the ledger board due to a lack of adequate flashing. On Maine’s coast the salty air can create some very corrosive chemistry on deck components.
The Community Association Institute (CAI) has recognized the need for condo communities to plan for funding structural inspection of decks, porches, and balconies. In 2023 CAI published a maintenance manual suggesting reserve fund studies should not limit its scope to budgetary funding but in the future include reserve items covering both safety and preventative maintenance needs. This CAI 68-page maintenance manual can be downloaded from the CAI website to form a basis of a community’s maintenance program.
Inspecting a deck or balcony may seem a simple task but depending on the age and deck materials used the process can become complicated quickly. In addition to looking for obvious surface damage from rot and material deficiencies, care in reviewing fasteners including types, spacing, and size is especially important. If significant repairs and replacement of deck components are required, it may be necessary to bring the entire deck structure up to today’s code recognizing the code can be different for 1 & 2-family homes as compared to other types of buildings. This could include reviewing not just deck materials but also stair treads and risers; ledger and bond beam sizes; baluster spacing; rail heights, post positions, and ledger flashings.
For those adventurous committee members who want to find their own answers the American Forest & Paper Association (AF&PA) has recently published the Prescriptive Residential Deck Construction Guide which is available as a free download from its Web site, www.afandpa.org. Though this is not a building code it helps to explain the nature of safe deck construction and can serve as an invaluable supplement. As deck inspection is so complicated, researchers at Virginia Tech produced the Manual for the Inspection of Residential Wood Decks and Balconies. This manual was published by the Forest Products Society in cooperation with the International Code Council (ICC).
The most challenging aspect of deck repair or design is once you resolve the structural issues you are still faced with the ever-increasing selection of deck materials and products. Twenty-five years ago, selecting pressure treated timber was the standard for both the framing and deck boards for many common decks. This became less desirable with the concern about the arsenic-laced treatment chemicals and the danger to young children and the environment in general. Today’s less toxic pressure treated lumber has its own challenges due to its corrosive effects on galvanized fasteners and copper flashing.
Though most wood decks use pressure treated structural frames, today’s trends use deck boards of other types of wood or wood substitutes. These woods range from the high-end Ipe’, mahogany-like species, and the various cedars. The new synthetic woods are made with wood powder mixed with plastic resins and though they portrait themselves maintenance free they are not all the same. A little research may determine which deck material maintains their color, strength, and fastener holding ability.
So, the simple deck is not so simple after all, however, maintaining a safe deck may be the simplest and best decision an association can make.
Written by Jack Carr, P.E., R.S., LEED-AP, Senior Consultant Criterium Engineers
Published in Condo Media