My deck has one small spot of rot, (see attached drawing) unfortunately it has rotted down half way through the header for the stairs on my deck (12 stairs). I dread the idea of ripping up this whole sizable deck to replace the 2×10 all the way back to the house. Would it work to glue and screw a piece of 2×10 behind the double 2×10 overlapping where the rot is? Would this still be strong enough considering the stairs hang from this board? Any other ideas or do I have to rip the whole thing up?
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Hunter
The way that connection is and with what it holds up, I'd surely temporarily hold the stair up and cutting out the bogus double.
Since there's stairs, there's room to do the work from down below. I presume there's a joist hanger at the other end. Hack that out of there, remove screws from the top (if exposed), cut from below if not.
Alot of work, but that rot is at the point of connection to the stairs and the corner framing. Leaving it there allows that sopping mess to expand. Backing it up really doesn't do much.
I'd at least cut out the rotted piece and insert a dutchman (after adding the 3rd member that runs nearly the full width of the deck). But you ideally should remove the fasteners from the deck boards in that area, pry them up a tad somehow, and slip a piece of rubber flashing in over the problem member.