Our firm has a lot of experience with residential wood construction but we are being asked more and more to design with cold formed steel studs and wood sheathing to make up the lateral force resisting system. My questions are about the anchor bolts:
1. Is there a quick reference for designing...
I received an email with the attached photo from an architect concerning a CMU lintel that has cracked on the underside of the block (see attached photo). This is a solid grouted wall supporting a wood roof, should not have been a problem.
I must admit I have never seen a crack like this. The...
I have a client who has an existing wood raised floor foundation. The joists bear on top of the concrete stem wall. They want to do a portion of their addition as slab on grade. This means the concrete slab on grade will butt up right against the existing wood sill plate, joists, and floor...
Hello all
Our firm designed a 3 story structure with fully grouted CMU bearing/shear walls. The mason did his grouting in high lifts 8-12 feet with 100% cleanouts according to the inspection reports. No issues were reported in the inspection reports.
After several mistakes the mason was fired...
I have seen other engineers use a 3.5x11.875 PSL or something similar on top of an existing top plate all around a home to raise the ceiling height. This feels to me like it is inducing a hinge, but I can't quite rationalize that. It seems you could almost consider it a triple top plate where...
A client wants to cut a door 3'x7' in an existing 6" tilt up panel. I have done plenty of these but never one where the client wanted to cut the opening across the joint between two panels. In plane shear will not be an issue. Besides loading the two panels in question and figuring out a way to...
