The Ledger plate

The ledger plate seemed the place to start the actual building. I was busy digging 2ft foundation holes for the posts in my trench, but I figured measuring everything relative to the ledger plate would be the best way forward. The height the ledger plate was attached at was a key consideration. This would define the level of the deck, and we decided a height level with the existing steps would be right. Higher would catch a little more sun, but all the proportions would be wrong, even the steps at the side of the deck would cease to be easily accessible.

The wall itself is worth a mention at this point, as is clear the house is on a slope, a small patch of level garden is supported by a very well constructed brick wall. This wall was not always there, when the house was built the level part of the garden was even smaller and it was backed with a quite shoddy brick wall, which can still be seen. As I understand it, this wall began to collapse and Neil my ex next door neighbour who was a bricky by trade built the new one. He and the then owners did not economise they used strong "engineering" bricks. These are tough cookies as I was to find out.

Given the length of the deck, two 4.8m stretches of 8" by 4" would form the ledger. I marked these out with the prospective joist positions and drilled holes for shield anchors.

These we set at diagonals with two holes between each joist position, the levels for the holes were geared so that the corresponding holes in the wall, would be in brick, not mortar. The horizontal positions may also have been geared to miss the mortar as well.

The shield anchors We bought from screwfix direct, who are an invaluable diy supplier. We bought M8/120, the 12cm length being needed to go through 5cm of timber and 4cm into the wall along with 1cm clearance between the ledger and the wall.

Anyone who knows anything about shield anchors may well be scratching their heads at the moment! did he seriously say 1 shield anchor every 8 inches? one of those things would hold an entire housing estate together! well that is as maybe, but in the absence of any knowledge I wanted to be on the safe side. Though I did come to regret it, when the drilling started.

In order to get the wall holes in precisely the right place the plan was to drill in a single shield anchor, attach the ledger board temporarily and mark the remaining positions by sticking a pencil through the pre-drilled bolt holes. This is where we had our first hiccup in the schedule. Each hole took about 10 minutes of hard drilling into the tough engineering bricks. Many thanks go to Eric and especially Simon who got their share of RSI in drilling these holes with my Black and Decker drill.

When finally all the holes were drilled and the frame anchors attached, we put some silicon sealant on the anchors and tried to attach the ledger board. There was no way it was going to fit. You cannot seriously expect two dozen or so holes to line up perfectly. The answer was to use a bigger bit to redrill the ledger holes to give a few mm slack, with this and some vigorous encouragement with a club hammer, the first ledger plate was attached. One important point to note with a ledger plate is that it should not back directly on to a wall where it will trap water and risk rotting despite the wood treatment. We placed some large stainless steel washers on each anchor to create about 1cm clearance. The sealant was aimed at avoid trapped water in such a crucial piece of the construction. Though our bricky friend Neil next door did have a chuckle at this, as well as the number of anchors.

With one ledger done, there was nothing for it, but to do it all over again with the second ledger.

I really can't recall quite how long it took us, but it was easily the most soul destroying part of the entire project. In fact with the exception of digging the holes for the foundation posts, the rest of the construction was great fun.

Finally after much sweat blood tears and an idea that turned into an abortive patent application, we had the second ledger in place. At this stage we may have been drawing a few curious glances, just what the hell is he up to?