TL;DR
A ledger board is the horizontal structural member bolted to a house's band joist to carry one edge of an attached deck, transferring half the deck's load into the building. The IRC prescribes its attachment, staggered 1/2-inch lag screws or through-bolts at spacing set by joist span, into solid framing, never into brick veneer, stucco alone, or hollow rim areas.
What it means
A ledger board is the horizontal structural member bolted to a house's band joist to carry one edge of an attached deck, transferring half the deck's load into the building. The IRC prescribes its attachment, staggered 1/2-inch lag screws or through-bolts at spacing set by joist span, into solid framing, never into brick veneer, stucco alone, or hollow rim areas. Flashing above and behind it keeps water out of the wall, and ledger failures, usually from nails-only attachment or rot behind missing flashing, cause most catastrophic deck collapses.
Where it sits in the glossary
Ledger board is part of the Trade jargon group inside the ProFix Directory glossary. Browse every term in this category from the glossary index.
Why Ohio homeowners should know it
This is a term Ohio homeowners encounter when reading contractor quotes, hiring paperwork, or inspection reports. Understanding it well enough to ask one good follow-up question is usually all the protection a homeowner needs.
ProFix Directory keeps definitions short on the index page and saves the longer context — Ohio-specific rules, where the term comes from, and which ProFix tools touch it — for these per-term pages so the term is easy to cite and easy to share.
ProFix tools that touch this term
See also
License: CC-BY-4.0 — quote freely with attribution to ProFix Editorial Team / ProFix Directory.