I am looking to build a deck on the back of my house. The house is on
a hill and has a sliding glass door from the basement to the back
yard. There is also a sliding glass door from the kitchen to where
the deck will be. I am having conflicted ideas of how to go about
designing the deck.

The basement wall is 96" from the ground of the back yard to to top of
teh poured concrete, there is then two 2x4's with a double 2x10 on
top. There as about 12" from the top of the basement sliding glass
door to the top of the poured foundation. There is then about 15"
from the top of the foundation to the bottom of the kitchen sliding
glass door.

I am not sure if i should attach the ledger to the foundation wall or
attach into the double 2x10s of the house.

I would prefer to attach to the foundation and build a stair at the
kitchen door. However when I add the beams at the far end of the
deck, i will only have about 76" of clearance to walk under.

I can raise the deck an extra 12" or so by attaching the ledger to the
2x10s. I have concernes with attaching the deck to this section of
teh house because it does not appear to be a sturdy as the foundation
would be.

Is there any way to attach a ledger to the foundation, but then have
the joists run above the ledger somehow?

Thanks for any help & suggestions.


Patrick