Hello. I'm building my own deck. I've got pretty detailed plans put together, but when I laid the plans out I discovered one of the footings under the beam was dangerously close to the utility (electrical and internet) lines coming into the house. I'm curious what opinions others might have on how to get around this. Here is a snapshot of the footing arrangement with my notes ... I'm curious if it's considered bad structurally to have the footings spaced wider at one point in order to get around utility like I need to. You can see how I'm considering doubling up the 6x6s to the "left" of the utility lines in the photo below, and then just moving the remainder over on the "right". This would result in a gap around the utility lines.
So long as I get the tributary widths and all of that figured out, and the footings sized appropriately, do you see any issues with this? Any other cleverer ideas?
So where they exist is sort of an estimate, no mater how they were mapped (assuming miss digg?) all I would do is carefully hand dig the one where the one post is next to the lines and not change anything!.
Thinking more, Id probably hand dig several of them to find the wires and then you know your good to go!
The city utilities come out and spray paint where the lines are located. A contractor friend of mine echoed basically what you're saying: it's just a guestimate no matter what, and you often have to give a foot or more on either side of their lines.
I'm assuming the general idea of spreading out the footings along the beam is a bad one? What if it happens that I am getting dangerously close to one? Is it alright to move the footing around a foot or so one direction or another? Or do the posts have to have nearly identical spacing?
If it has to move then it has to move but once you find the cable even if its dead center your only moving a few inches, the amount of support doesn't change and the spacing is not so critical that a few inches is going to create issues.
I have a large deck, not sure the measurements but maybe about 12 x 30. We got a buttload of wet snow in December before the ground was fully frozen, and thanks to physical problems I never shoveled it off like I usually do. Then recently we got a few hours of steady rain then freezing temps, so the snow is like mounds of ice now. Looking out the window the other day I noticed the railing was arched upward, but I just thought it was warping. But when I went out there I was surprised to see that part (and only part) of the deck had sunk 4 to 5 inches where it butts against the house.
I am feeling better so I removed some of the icy snow and started to jack the ledger board up about an inch when It dawned on me that I don't really know what happened. I'm not sure if posts and footing sank in unfrozen ground (in which case it would be dumb and damaging to keep jacking), or if the deck just broke free from the house, or both, or something else. But I decided I should stop trying to lift it and just keep it supported until the ground thaws, which could be a couple more months.
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Hello,
I'd like to hang a hammock swing from a roof rafter in my porch but I don't know if the rafters are strong enough or appropriate to hang from. If I use a mounting bracket like this - https://a.co/d/hfmEV9l, is that different for mounting to the bottom of a rafter in the attached picture? The hammock supports 400 lbs so it wouldn't need to support more than that.
Thank you.
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06-10-23, 11:27 AM
