Options for Fastening Deck Guardrails

[Music] the guardrail post a-frame connection has to be rock-solid in order to support the guard system that you have on your deck whether it's a composite rail system a stainless steel cable system or a site built system now we can do this by inserting the post on the inside of the deck frame or the outside of the deck frame there's slight differences between the way we reinforce these posts and the frame around them depending on whether it's inside or outside so let's take a look at those starting with this one here up against the ledger board the way I built this one is I got the ledger board already installed and I put an extra block on the inside of the ledger board both on the second joist Bay back and the first joist bay back what that's doing is reinforcing the edge of the post so that it doesn't move inward and at the bottom so it can't twist outward then I've got a bracket on the second inboard block that's connecting a bolt which goes all the way through the post to the outside of the end joist and that's important we're really reinforcing the outside of the deck frame with all of these connections not actually the post then we've got a bolt that holds the bottom of the post to the frame then we get that rock-solid connection so this mid span post along the end joist is very similar to the way we did the ledger board connection we've put in a double row of blocking instead of a single row where this inner row of blocking kind of mimics what's happening with the ledger board having a double row of blocking gives us a lot of strength when we've double nailed in along the backside and along the first joist in that way we'll make sure that that blocking is contiguous and when we connect the connector to that blocking it's going to be good and solid the bolt runs all the way through just like it did at the ledger to the outside joist that's going to reinforce that outside joist really that bottom bolt that we put in there is just to hold the post secure so it doesn't move side to side once this is all secured in place its rock-solid so here at the outside corner we've got two loads to consider we've got the force going in this direction to the outside of the end joist and we've got a force going that way to the outside of the rim joist because of that we're going to use two blocked and bracketed connections one going along the rim joist here and one going along the end joist so in the case of the rim joist we put two blocks one between the first inboard floor joist and the post itself and then a block between the first and second inboard floor joist that's what we're gonna put the bracket for a solid connection use a long bolt all the way through to the outside of the end joist on the end joist to support the rim joist we're going to put one block and a bracket in there all of these blocks get nailed off solidly with 16 penny galvanized nails then once those bolts go through we put the bolts at the bottom we're going to support the forces both going in the out direction towards the rim joist and the out direction towards the end joist for a rock-solid corner connection so installing deck posts along a rim board is pretty straightforward what we need to do is reinforce the rim board by tying it back with the brackets into the floor system in this example here we got the joist we add a block to the side of the joist right up against the backside of the post then the bracket attaches to that block bolt goes all the way through reinforcing the rim board and supporting the back of the post as well that's going to give us a solid connection there now here on this little mock-up I can show you what happens when a post is oriented anywhere between the two joists in that joy spec all we do for this is reinforce the rim board by putting a bracket on each of the adjacent floor joist through bolted out to the rim joist and then the post can be mounted and bolted just to the rim joist anywhere in that section another way to do guardrail the frame connections is to use structural screws and blocking and this arrangement I've got the rim joist out here the deck joists here and then I've put double blocks between them right behind the guardrail post we've got structural screws going into those blocks from each of the joists on either we've also got structural screws going into the joists and then we've got a structural screws going all the way through the rim joist the post and the double blocks in this configuration we've got an outside corner post we have a rim joist here a end joist here and a deck joist here to reinforce this connection we're going to put a double block between the end joist and the first inboard joist and then we're going to put the post in the corner then we're going to use a cut-off 4x4 block and that's going to support the backside of this post so that in when the forces are pushing the posts this way we're not going to have the bottom of this kick-out we've got screws arranged into the post into the end joist into the deck joists into the block and then you can see from this side we've got the structural screws into the blocking and that's going to secure the entire connection so here we've got the end joist on the deck and the first inboard deck joists we're going to put solid blocks on either side of a 4x4 that's going to be our structural guardrail post and behind that we're gonna back that guardrail post up with a short cut off 4x4 and we've got screws all over the place to make this assembly work we've got screws from the end joist into the blocks then we've got screws from the blocks into both the post and into the little 4x4 block the backside of those blocks is screwed in and then finally we've got some long screws that penetrate all the way through the end joist through the post and into that short cutoff block something to be aware of when using screw and block arrangements like I've shown you here you're going to want to check with the manufacturer's instructions to get the correct screw length screw type location of the screws and blocking arrangement to make these configurations work so these are the basics of how to install a secure guardrail post on the inside of a deck frame if you've got a more complicated deck frame you can extrapolate from these details to create your own secure connection now we want to talk about the guardrail post on the outside of the deck frame and to do that let's look at some mock-ups when installing a guardrail post on the outside of the deck frame along the rim joist one of the configurations is pretty easy and that's when the joist aligns pretty close to the center of the post itself in that case all you need is one bracket and run the bolt right through the middle of that bracket right into the post you got a solid connection once you screw those screws in to the side of the joist so what happens when you run into the case where you're going to have two joist along the rim joist and you need to mount a guardrail post on the outside you're gonna reinforce that rim joist with two brackets one on each of the adjacent joist bracket bolt through to the rim joist and then you just bolt the post to the rim joist anywhere in that joist Bay when installing a guardrail post on the end joist of a deck you're going to need to put a block between that end joist and the first inboard joist in order to get a secure connection by installing two brackets one that's going to connect that block out to the post and the other that's going to connect that block to that first inboard joist when you're installing guardrail posts on the outside corner of a deck you're gonna have to install two posts that way the rail coming along from each direction has a termination point in order to do that you're going to have to secure the post back to the end joist to the deck or to the rim joist using some brackets those brackets because the bolts are going to be going through the same block in the middle we've filled a little corner block in here just to give a facing for those brackets you're gonna have to offset those brackets by about a half-inch so those bolts don't meet and bump into each other in the middle of that corner assembly once that's all screwed together you got a rock-solid corner this is just a few of the simple options that you've got for strolling guardrail posts on the outside of a deck if you've got a more complicated deck you can extrapolate from these blocking and bracket connections to any other sort of design that you might encounter some structural guardrail post mount to the surface of the deck or blocking that's underneath the surface of the deck it's important to get that blocking right otherwise you're gonna have a problem where the post actually tears right off the surface of the deck in this configuration we've got the rim board of the deck we've got two deck joists meeting into that and we put a block back about a foot or a foot and a half from the rim joist then between the rim joist and the block we've secured two blocks to two by blocks with the grain going perpendicular to the rim joist and that's the important part then on the underside where we run these bolts through that double blocking we use the manufacturers supplied reinforcing plate this is often something you buy in addition to the posts you're gonna want to spend the extra couple bucks to get that securing plate because it's going to reinforce the whole connection now there are other configurations of this same detail when you get to the end joist of the deck but the same principles apply and I think you'll be able to figure out the rest on how to do that [Music]

Channel: finehomebuilding

Views: 1,217,562

Keywords: Shop Class, Critical Deck Connections, FineHomebuilding.com, deck railings, guardrails, deck posts, framing, deck framing, remodeling

Id: lTRquLcL6Jo

Length: 10min 3sec (603 seconds)

Published: Thu May 30 2019