It’s been a week and the joist hangers still haven’t come in. Home Depot actually cancelled that part of my order (I had also ordered 4 rubber washers for $2.50 and they kept that part of the order – hey Home Depot, I’m not coming just to pick up 4 rubber washers). I then placed an order at Lowes but that isn’t ready for pick-up either. On Sunday I though there had to be something I could do with what I have so I went to the side yard and did what I could.
My initial plan was to connect the joists to the fence posts using the joist hangers. Without the hangers I decided to cut a space between the beams I already attached to the fence posts and have the beams fit in that space. To keep the joist up I screwed in a piece of wood directly under the beams and the space I cut so that the joist could rest on it. I attached it using a structural screw as well as two 3″ framing nails. With the fence side secured I could then cut notches in post on the other side for the joist to fit into there.
The beam from the first post comes to one side of the notch, the joist from the fence post comes to the middle of the notch and the beam to the next post will come to the other side of the notch. I screwed the first beam into the post using a structural screw and then screwed the joist into that beam. For me that makes more sense then screwing it into the post at some angle.
Here are the joist and two beams all fastened in place. I did some chin-ups on it and it isn’t going anywhere. Having the joist and beams go straight into the notch on this side would be significantly stronger than any joist hanger as basically the structural integrity of the post itself keeps them up.
There is one more section to put in. Then I will put more posts halfway through each of the sections so that there’s about a 4′ spacing between the posts on the side opposite the fence. That’ll be next weekend’s work. If I get the joist hangers by then I’ll put those in as well and the main structure will be complete. Then it’ll be time for the roof.
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