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Community Corner

Montgomery County Performs Deck Inspections for 'Building Safety Month'

The county can help make sure your deck is safe.

Silver Spring resident Anriana Niepa was told to get her deck inspected, and she's glad she did.

Montgomery County's Department of Permitting Services came out and in 10 minutes found that her deck needed to be bolted differently to become safely attached to her house.

"I just bought the house in December, and the deck is attached in a manner that is more aesthetically pleasing than safe when it was built," she said.

Now she can host those summer parties she planned on having when she moved in.

During the month of May — Montgomery County's "Building Safety Month" — the department performed free deck inspections. Twenty-two were performed by four county inspectors, in Silver Spring (seven), Bethesda (four), Chevy Chase (two), Germantown (two), Gaithersburg (two), Burtonsville (two), Rockville (one) and Potomac (one).

Inspections are available to all Montgomery County residents, except those in the city of Rockville and city of Gaithersburg, said James Sackett, a permitting services inspector for the county. Those two cities have their own codes and safety protocols.

The inspections are offered for single-family detached homes, townhouses and duplexes. This is the second year inspections are free of charge for homeowners, Sackett said. Homeowners voluntarily request inspections.

Sackett said the county found multiple problems with decks, including improper attachments, lack of graspable hand rails and guardrails that were weak.

"I ran across one deck where two 6-by-6 posts had been attacked by carpenter ants, and they had compromised the posts at the ground level," he said.

Sackett said Niepa's deck was attached by a ledger as opposed to being free standing. The bolts that attached the ledger to the band board of the house were drilled in a way that sinks them below the outer depth of the ledger board, otherwise known as counter sinking. He confirmed Niepa's belief that the deck was built for aesthetic purposes, not safety.

The repair to Niepa's deck involved a proper installation of half-inch lag bolts that are doubled on the ends of the boards.

In 2010, the county received more than 100 inspection requests from residents, a markedly larger number than this year's 22.

The theme for this year's Building Safety Month was "Building Safety: Where You Live, Work and Play."

The department had a building safety theme each week in May. The subjects included energy and green building, disaster safety and mitigation, fire safety and backyard safety, Sackett said. In addition to offering displays and video in the lobby, the department brought in guest speakers to expand on the topics.

Sackett said the costs required to conduct the inspections totaled $5,940 for the county, while it cost an additional $3,000 for other expenses to put on Building Safety Month.

He estimates that there have been three deck collapses in the past three years in the county. All of those decks were considered old, built without permits and had improperly installed ledgers.

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