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How much weight should a deck of a given area support, either according to building codes or convention?

In my local (Massachusetts) building code, I found the answer for floors (40 lbs/ft2 live load), but I'm not sure if that is the same for decks. So I'm curious what the codes of various areas say about the load capacity of deck, and what people think is reasonable to design for regardless of code.

If your answer references building codes, please state the locality.

Aarthi
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Vebjorn Ljosa
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1 Answers1

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I found the following VERY detailed tutorial on determining joist span based on expected live and dead load: American Wood Council

The weight your deck will need to support will depend whether you get snow and how much, whether there will be a roof over the deck, whether the deck will be sheltered by any other means, what do you expect to do with the deck (outdoor kitchen, hot tub, outdoor parties), etc.

Noah Goodrich
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