On Mar 4, 9:57*pm, Tony wrote:
RonB wrote:
We live in a newly constructed home with brick exterior and a
basement. *The basement was dug and completed in August of 2008, so it
has been finished and back filled for about 18 months. *I have been
letting things settle before I added a deck. *We are planning to build
a deck *which will be irregular shaped but not all that large.
Description of the size and shape:

- There is a cove in the side of the house, and under the roof line,
that is approx. 13'6" wide and 6' deep (from the face face of the
house)

- The deck will extend an additional 8' from the edge of the house,
and about 20' from one end of the cove.

in other words the deck is "L" shaped with a (20'x8') leg and a
(6x14') leg)'. *About 245 SF.

I realized from the start that attaching a ledger to brick was a no-no
for most codes and I had no problem with a free-standing deck....until
now. * I had not considered the soil compaction issue with our new
basement construction. *I know the basement guy left some virgin soil
inside of the cove but the 2' to 3' outside of the basement wall is
disturbed. *ditto the wall along the longer length of the L. *We have
back-filled from settling several times since construction and the
area under the roof seems to have stabilized. *I was able to get under
there with the rear end of a bobcat last fall and didn't leave much
track.

The Problem: Footings for the free-standing deck in area closest to
the basement foundation. *I don't relish the idea of digging 8'
footings, especially under the roof overhang - almost a had dig. *I
had considered going down to frost line (about 3' here) and pouring
slabs and then tube footings on top.

Any help would be appreciated.

BTW, the backfill, and surrounding soil is good old SE Kansas clay.
That probably doesn't help either.

Thanks
RonB

Will the deck ledger be above or even with the basement walls? *If above
the foundation wall, how high above is it?

If it's down as low as the basement walls, just drill all the way
through to bolt it on. *It's not depending on the brick. *If it's up
above, you can get creative if it's not too far above.

That would be getting a little low. Besides, I would have to remove
basement sheetrock to get access.

As it is, if I had bolted into the sill plate the deck would have been
about 2' off of the grade and could have been close to the house floor
level. Gettin' older and we are trying to maintain same-level access
in case one of us gets gimped up. Going down to the basement wall
would put the deck on the ground with 1-2 steps to get to it.
Besides, boring holes on 16" centers in concrete gets cumbersome.

Ron