Free-Standing vs. Ledger-Attached Decks

First thing that we're going to get into is a freestanding deck versus a deck that's attached with a ledger board at the house. And both are completely fine, but you're going to have to think about a couple things before you make that decision. We usually go with a ledger attachment whenever it's possible. When we have a good situation at the house, if we're coming right below the door threshold, we are going to meet the band board of the house and we can attach directly to that with our ledger. This is going to do a couple things. It's going to eliminate a row of footings near the house, which will save you money. It'll save you time. The other thing that it's going to do is provide a lot more stability, especially lateral stability with the build. By connecting to the house and the house's foundation, you're going to stiffen up the entire structure. We also do freestanding decks a lot. A freestanding deck is going to be where you have a beam about 2 ft away from the house that's going to actually support the deck and then you push your joist to can lever towards the house. In the end, it looks the same as a ledger attached deck, but it's actually not connected to the house. It's completely self-supported. We're going to decide on a freestanding deck when we have a situation that maybe we're going below the threshold of the door. Maybe we're doing two steps out of the house and now we're up against the house's foundation. If we have poured concrete walls, that's no problem. We can do a ledger there with appropriate concrete anchors. But a lot of times, especially around here, we're going to encounter cinder block. Cinder block is not something that you want to attach to. So, we always go with a freestanding deck in that situation just to make sure we have adequate load support at the house. Freestanding deck is going to be a great option for you, especially when it's low to the ground. Where you might encounter an issue is if you're going higher up off the ground, you're really going to notice that lack of lateral support and you'll have to do some diagonal bracing in there to keep everything nice and tight and square. Also, by doing a freestanding deck, you don't have issues with flashing at the house. 90% of problems with a deck are going to be at the house and ledger attachment. Now, if you flash it properly, you're not going to have any of those issues. But every time we demo a deck, we notice some rod at the house because it wasn't flashed properly.…