How safe is your deck?

Since we are having an early Spring this year, people will be out on their decks enjoying the weather and it may be time to look at the safety of your deck.  Decks cause more injuries and loss of life than any other part of your house.

The number of deck failures resulting in injuries has been increasing at an alarming rate!  Between August 2004 and December 2005, the US news media reported 225 injuries and one fatality from deck collapse caused by ledger connection failures.  many more deck injuries go unreported every year, some with and without injuries.

“Clearly, something needs to be done to tackle the growing problem of unsafe decks,” said Mike Beaudry of the North American Deck and Railing Association (NADRA) and that’s why we are supporting this month as Deck Safety Month.

One way to approach this problem is to have a professional inspection  done which will examine every inch of your deck, provide information on your deck’s capacity limits, identify any dangerous problem areas, and give you a idea of what to keep your eye on in the future.  If your deck is an older one, it might be good to schedule regular inspections.  This is because older decks were built before the code requirements were in place.  Some of these “pre-code” decks may have deck-to-house attachments using only nails which is more suseptible to pulling away from the house.

People to contact for a deck inspection would be a Home Inspector, a contractor that build decks, or your local Town Building Inspector.

Let us know if your deck is having problems so we can pass that information along to the consumers to help them look for those areas of concern.  Also, here are a few sites to visit for more information.

Annual Deck Inspection

Residential Wooden Decks

Deck Safety Month