verandah construction

[Dan_574]

I need to continue a verandah around the front of the house. I dont want to dig out too much so there wont be room for a normal joist on bearer construction. What I want to do is have the bearer as normal then instead of sitting the joists on top I want to use joist hangers on the sides of the bearers to take the joists. Can anyone see any problems with this. Another option would be to get the top mount joist hangers as used with the I beams.

[julianx]

this is a perfectly acceptable method of constuction. One minor issue I've found is that water collects where the decking runs accross the top of the bearer, so priming at least the top of the bearer and joists is a good idea. Also I normally bolt hand rail posts to the side of the joist and the back of the bearer so with this method you don't get quite as good fixings at the bottom of your posts.

[Trav]

No problems with that method at all. Definietly paint/prime the top of the bearers/joinst ebfore decking.

Trav