How to repair deck sloping on one side of the house

deckjoistsledger

I'm in Jonesboro, GA. My deck is about 3 ft off the ground. I have a crawl space. The deck is leaning/sloping down from the house on the left side. I looked at many youtube videos and found the issue to be the ledge board does not have lag bolts. It is screwed in. The next thing is see is the rim joist on both side(front and ledger board)do not have a metal rim joist faster. The builder cut the bottom 1/2 in corner of the 2×8 and nailed a 2×2 trim along/underneath that cut out. Results and ironically enough no rim joist is pulling away from the ledger or the front deck. I hope pictures clarify this explanation.

From what I've read and researched I would need to jack up the deck on the left side then put lag screws (Ledgerlok). Sounds straight forward but

  1. Do I need to remove the nails from the ledger board …..with a saw?.
  2. Can I use my heavy duty car hydraulic jack to raise the deck (2 or more)?

nails in ledger board and bottom cut rim joist w/out metal bracket

deck sloping on left side

Best Answer

I had a deck where the rim joist bowed out, and the cross joists came unattached. I used two car jacks to get everything back up to level to be reassembled and use proper joist hangers.

Safety tip, use the jacks to lift, but once up, set a stack of lumber or blocks to hold it up while working underneath. If you have some 4x4 stock (or 2 2x4s edgewise), don't lift a specific joist, but use a cross piece to lift several and spread the force.