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Quick Tie hold down cables and undulations in wood framed walls

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sgstrickpe

Structural
Feb 26, 2024
2
Has anyone encountered regular/periodic undulations or waves in exterior wood framed walls that use quick tie holddown cables? I am seeing 3/4" to 1 1/4" waves about every 6 feet in the sidewalls of a one story wood framed structure, with no apparent explanation.
 
 https://files.engineering.com/getfile.aspx?folder=63441f71-6704-400c-8ba9-6e3ddcdd40c6&file=IMG_4262.JPG
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Looks like thermal expansion induced buckling of the vinyl siding. Likely because it was nailed on "good and tight" instead of loosely to allow for expansion and contraction.
 
What is the exposure of the surface w.r.t. sun and what is the supported structure? Are there enough studs in the wall? Is the top of the wall secured to the upper structure adequately? The top plate looks bowed from the outset as no gaps or buckling has developed at the eave finish. In the image below, I extended a line to the corner of the house. The issue looks worth opening up to investigate.

crop.IMG_4262_snkv29.jpg
 
Yes my place has it as well.

It's thermal and moisture driven as far as I can tell.

The way to sort it from what I have discovered is to have a double batton with a 20mm expansion strip covered by a 40mm vertically external. And oval nails thin in the direction of movement on the other battons. Expansion strips every 4 meters.
 
If vinyl siding, one of the properties of vinyl is that it is not dimensionally stable and tends to increase with time. Most commercial product literature cautions about this. I did an engineering report about 20 years back on a dairy barn where this was the problem... long lengths of the material without proper joints. This was contesting another engineering report where the engineer missed that. Their product literature clearly indicated this problem.

-----*****-----
So strange to see the singularity approaching while the entire planet is rapidly turning into a hellscape. -John Coates

-Dik
 
Its the same with most laminate flooring as well.

Having a battle with my co-builder brother in law about doing my 15 meter by 5 meter upper floor of the barn. The product sheet says maximum 10 meters long length runs and 7 meters restrained short width, 8 meters unrestrained.

They normally don't bother with the gaps. And there is always issues and the flooring turns into fire wood after 5-6 years.
 
How is this presumably vinyl plank secured to the walls?

Looks very much like lack of fixing/ not enough room for expansion.

Most people don't realise that these materials expand 5 to 10 times more than steel.

Without proper guidance and fixing those long thin plans will buckle very easily.

Remember - More details = better answers
Also: If you get a response it's polite to respond to it.
 
We put vinyl siding to our house 15 years ago. The distributor cautioned us about the gaps and proper instalation.
We screwed the siding on the walls but left a minimal gap under the screw head to allow movement. And we left 1-1.5 cm gap under window/door cover panels.
Never had an issue with curving like that picture.

I'd guess the siding company screwed the panels tight and left little to no gap.
 

Exactly the problem with the dairy barn. The engineer that did up the original report had overlooked that.

-----*****-----
So strange to see the singularity approaching while the entire planet is rapidly turning into a hellscape. -John Coates

-Dik
 
The siding was attached firmly to the structure, I pushed the siding in to make sure it was not the material that was bending. It appears to be the wood sheathing that is bowing
 
This thread really isn't an Engineering Failure kr disaster though.....

Maybe red flag it and ask for it to be put in the structural general forum?

Remember - More details = better answers
Also: If you get a response it's polite to respond to it.
 
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