Sagging deck -best way to repair?

[knate]

Hi everyone,

We have had a huge amount of snow in late winter that melted pretty much all at once.

After the thaw, we realized our deck was buckling in the center and it looked like our center support beam (on a concrete footing) settled 3-4 inches during the thaw. (the house is 10 years old, we've been in it for a year and had not noticed any sagging prior to this event)

We have pretty sandy soil, and experienced unprecedented snowfall (like worst the season in 25 years) so I'm assuming thats the culprit.

Anyway - we've been calling contractors to see about getting it repaired. The first one that came out recommended just replacing the beam itself, and not doing any sort of backfill in the dirt / gravel area under our deck (which is about ~6 feet above the ground).

We had assumed that a portion of the process would have been to put in additional soil / gravel as well, or in place of, replacing the original post.

I've never dealt with settling issues in the past. Can anyone let me know what the 'best practice' is for this kind of repair?

Thanks!

[pushkins]

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.

[HayZee518]

for my own use I've put in decks and for the post footings I go below the frost level about two foot more and put in a bed of coarse gravel, then the concrete and concrete form (sonotube) I use a post anchor atop the concrete. my posts are probably overkill - I use 6X6 instead of 4X4 PT.

[jong0726]

i think it is better to get help at once!