Limiting Height in Wood Construction
Limiting Height in Wood Construction
(OP)
I gather from Table 1617 that the limiting height for light frame wood construction is 65'. The prescriptive portion of Chapter 23 limits wood to 3 stories, which is traditionally what we have seen in this area.
I was hoping to get feedback on the group's experience in using wood in applications of greater than 3 stories and the pros and cons. My feeling is that when going over 3 stories, economy is lost and that other systems may be more applicable.
Thanks.
I was hoping to get feedback on the group's experience in using wood in applications of greater than 3 stories and the pros and cons. My feeling is that when going over 3 stories, economy is lost and that other systems may be more applicable.
Thanks.






RE: Limiting Height in Wood Construction
Last year we had a 4 story building that the owners wanted to stick frame. We ran into several problems over the last year.
the first was they wanted a brick facade. The brick institute does not allow brick to be tied to wood for over three stories. It is because of the differential movement/ wood continuall shrinks over it's life and brick continually grows appatently the resulting stress causes alot of cracking. this causes us to change the exterior to metal studs while keeping interior wood bearing walls and long span wood floor trusses.
The second problem was fire protection, i am no expert, but from what i gather the building code tries to make it very difficult and expensve to built wood structures over 3 stories. The code was requiring sprinklers and other issues that made it cheaper to go to no combustible construction.
hope this helps
RE: Limiting Height in Wood Construction
RE: Limiting Height in Wood Construction
RE: Limiting Height in Wood Construction
RE: Limiting Height in Wood Construction
From structural point of view, if your region is seismic region, unless you have enough solid shear walls, your holdown force may be too high.