deck

[glatt]

Unnecessary regulators suck. But so does an improperly built deck that collapses when you have a party and 15 people are standing on it. Decks seem to be more susceptible to collapse than buildings. I'm not sure why that is. I never remember hearing of building just collapsing under the weight of people, but I do remember hearing of half a dozen news stories where decks collapsed and people were hurt.

Three inspections is overkill in most deck situations, but I can see how if a finished deck has hidden framing, you would want to inspect the framing before it was covered. Maybe the inspectors are just not interested in crawling around under low decks and maybe taller decks often finish the space a little underneath so that the framing is somewhat hidden. Tall decks have the most potential danger, so they should be thoroughly inspected.

Inspections can't catch everything though. I was helping a guy build his deck once, and he was using hangers for the joists. He used the short nails to hang the hangers to the posts, and the long nails to nail through the joists. I saw him do it and corrected him, but an inspector wouldn't have been able to see the length of the nail based on the visible nail head.