Treated wood fasteners

[upfront]

I am building a deck. I have been told many things about fasteners.
The deck will be all treated wood( ACQ). Can I use coated deck screws ( green) for all fasteners ? Can I use these for the joist hangers as well ?
I plan on using carage bolts to fasten the hand rail posts, I will not be albe to use a drill in two locations. Can I use lag screws ?

[HayZee518]

stainless or coated deck screws. do not use blued or galvanized - they react with the chemical in the treated wood. yeah lag screws are ok where there isn't too much shearing force.

[upfront]

Thanks HayZee.
The lags will be gavanized , right ? will they not break down ?
I was talking to a friend last night , he was concerned that the screws holding the joist hangers may not handle the sheer load as well. I would rather use all screws that way I never have to worry about nails pulling out. But if the screws won't take the sheer force, the deck is 8' off the ground. I can't see why the screws wouldn't take the sheer as long as I fill uo all the holes in the hanger, thats eight 3" #8s in each hanger.
Your thoughts pls.

[HayZee518]

3 inch #8s are ok but a little bit overkill. 2 inch would be fine. you heard that term strength comes in numbers? well this applies also to the number of screws used in a joist hanger. the lag bolts have a zinc plated surface - a little bit different than hot dipped galvanized.

[upfront]

Great, so I am set. I am so glad I found this forum, lots of grat stuff here.
Thanks for your help.

[HayZee518]

yeah, you'll find a lot of usefull info in here. pushkins, hube, hvacwiz, mrcaptainbob are all seasoned professionals. Troy started this forum in 2002. He's a computer whizz from Alabama. I stumbled upon this site one day and kinda liked it and asked troy if I could become a part of it. Now, five years later I'm still here. My mainstay is electrical but I have a vast repertoire of other stuff as well. I'm always doin something or taking things apart to see what makes them tick. Then I go seeking the knowledge to fix them (it)

[pushkins]

You really only need #10 nails (Simpson) in the joist hangers, in fact I think from memory that you may well void any warranty using screws in Simpson joist hangers as apposed to nails.
Now attaching the ledger to the house should NEVER be nailed if your following good building practices (especially at 8' height) Lag screws or ledger lock bolts are the best policy.
You mentioned Lag screws holding the joist hangers ? don't do that !!

Also 3" screws or nails in joist hangers are too long, if the joist hanger is on a ledger and that ledger is attached to the house the 3" screws or nails would most probably go all the way through the ledger board and into your siding material.

[upfront]

hmmm, well this deck has been up for over a year, I hope I did ok. I have taken the siding off of the house to put the ledger on.
The screws will go through the ledger, the osb sheathing and into the rim joist. Is this going to cause a problem ? I have a drip edge on top of the ledger and behind the siding above the ledger. So the water should not be able to get to where the screws go into the osb. I put 2 @ 1/4 X 3" lags, through the 2X8 ledger,into the rim at32" centers.
If this is not enought to hold it up I will go back and fix it, The last thing I need is to have it fail. The ledger that was up there was randomly air nailed. It stayed up for as long as the old deck was there. The only issue I really had was the shear force on the screews used with the hangers, as opposed to using the coated nails. But if simson wont waranty with screews the mybe I need to use the nails? I just like screws to keep everything tight. Can't say how many times I have seen nails pulling out of the joist hangers a few years down the road.

[HayZee518]

the screws "bite" into the wood to hold objects. screws are a sort of inclined plane if you think about it. nails when driven into a board, sever the grain and growth rings of the tree and rely on this grain to capture the nail. I think there is more shear force when using nails.
screws have a torque value just like bolts that are torqued. bolts when torqued are actually stretched a little bit longitudinally and rely on this elasticity to hold things together. same could be said of screws.

[pushkins]

Technically speaking lag screws (or better still Ledger lock bolts) should be installed every 12" staggered according to code. Ledger lock bolts are supper easy to install with a cordless drill they are specifically designed for straight install no pre drilling required.
Simpson also make a bracket for ledger board attachment to the house, but this method requires attaching the bracket to the floor joists inside the home and deck joists outside and is connected by threaded rod.

Nails "alone" are not permitted for use under code.