What are deck tension ties?
Deck tension ties are primarily used to prevent the floor joists of your deck from pulling away from the ledger board and house itself.
The joist hangers on your ledger board only support a straight, downward pressure whereas the tension ties support the horizontal movement.
Imagine you have 20 people on your deck and it’s holding the weight. This is the downward pressure the joist hangers support.
Now put on music and have all 20 people start dancing. The deck tension ties will prevent all that movement from loosening your joists from the ledger board keeping it fastened to the actual house.
Where a joist hanger is only fastened to the ledger board and joist, a deck tension tie will connect your joist directly to the sill plate or the lower plate of the wall above your first floor. It’s important to note that you can not fasten these ties to your rim joist.
The rim joist itself doesn’t have the strength to support your deck from pulling away from the house. In many cases, flashing will either not be installed or installed incorrectly causing your only support to rot away. This is why it’s so important to fasten to a plate of the house.
Don’t believe me? Just take a look at the photos provided in this article.
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