Bearer

A bearer is the primary horizontal framing member that spans between posts or stumps and carries the floor or deck joists above. Its size and allowable span come from the AS 1684 span tables for the load and the joist spacing it supports.

The load path in a raised timber floor or deck is a clear hierarchy:

• the decking or flooring spans across the joists,
• the joists span between the bearers, and
• the bearers span between the posts/stumps, which carry the load to the footings.

So a bearer carries the accumulated load of everything above it over its span. That makes its size sensitive to two things: the span between supports (longer span needs a deeper or doubled bearer) and the load width (how much floor area feeds into it). AS 1684 gives the member size for a given timber stress grade, span, and spacing.

The difference from a joist matters: joists are the closely-spaced members the floor sits on; the bearer is the bigger member underneath that the joists land on. Mixing them up, or under-sizing a bearer for its span, gives a bouncy or sagging floor.

For a builder the practical points are to size bearers from the AS 1684 span tables (or an engineer) for the actual span, spacing, and load, not by eye; to support them on posts/stumps that themselves carry load to adequate footings; and to detail the joist-to-bearer and bearer-to-post connections for the load and for any uplift (tie-downs in wind areas). On decks especially, use the right durability class and corrosion-rated fixings, because a bearer is structural and a failed one drops the floor.

Also known as: Floor bearer, deck bearer.

Category: Structure / Timber framing.

Related

• Residential decks
• Deck subframe

See also

• Concrete stump

References

• AS 1684 Residential timber-framed construction, Standards Australia (verified 2026-06-04)

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Last updated: 2026-06-04. Verified: 2026-06-04. Quarterly review for currency.