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Is the soil/gravel/whatever it is under your deck washing out with the snow melt or did the footing sink ?
You need to address "why" the footing settled before paying for any work.
Dig a small hole beside the problem footing, make sure the footing is at least deeper than your freeze level. (about 30" depending on where you live).
If you live north of southern Ohio then 30" deep footings are going to be the minimum (by code) and only get deeper the further north you go.
From your description it sounds like the footing couldn't support the weight of the snow load and it was pushed into the ground, this means the footing needs to be deeper and/or thicker before the post is mounted to it.
Typically when I lived in Ohio we would dig down 32" and have between 6" and 8" of concrete under the posts if they were concreted in or we would fill the hole with concrete (all 32") and then mount the post to the concrete above ground.
I often see poor footings on decks, some people thick "ahhhh it's only a deck, it's not a house", but in reality a deck should be built with close to the same though process as a house, 6" of snow on a roof weighs the exact same as
6" of snow on a deck.
Last edited by pushkins; 03-22-2008 at 04:47 PM.
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