Brick lintel question - residential

[Bammer25]

Hi there. Structural Pe here building a home. My contractor is super nervous about this situation. I am not. Wondering if I am missing something. I have attached a first floor plan view. In red is a triple 24” LVLi designed to span 25’ and eliminate a T cased opening between breakfast sunroom and covered porch. We actually finished the covered itch as heated space. Everything is framed and completely open.

It’s time for brick and we want brick over that beam where a gable is. I have attached an exterior picture with the gable circled. Contractor is super worried about the brick loading. That gable wall is directly over the triple LVL.

There are 2 issues. Loading is one. I included brick weight in my design. I am not concerned. The other is the lintel usually being cast into the adjacent brick course mortar joint. That is not possible here since the roof comes down. Is simply bolting to the exterior wall studs going to work? Or do I just go with hardi/shake? I calculated about 3000 total pounds of brick there over 11’

 

[Bammer25]

Little more background. The t cased opening was also a separator between the kitchen and breakfast sunroom and covered porch. Covered porch is finished and will be a keeping room.

 

[Bammer25]

Entire first floor plan added for more clarity

 

[Bammer25]

“Deck” is now actually covered porch which you can see in the picture. Finished covered porch is shown with the two tall narrow windows (fireplace in between)

 

[ChorasDen]

You mentioned a triple ply LVL, how are the plies interconnected to share the load? I'm guessing you'll need several rows of SDS screws to get appropriate load sharing.

 

[Bammer25]

I had them connected with 3 staggered rows of 1/2” bolts at 12” on center

 

[ChorasDen]

Is the lintel intended to be supported by the triple LVL, or is the lintel stiff enough to carry the load by itself, and you are simply using nominal attachments to the LVL to brace the lintel?

 

[Bammer25]

The lintel is 3-4 feet above the lvl. The lvl is at the floor level. It would be bolted to the exterior wall studs, which are supported below by the LVl. I would assume a wood screw every other stud would have enough shear capacity to hold the brick weight vertically. No?

 

[JoelTXCive]

Prior to being an engineer, I was a homebuilder. We would have similar setups. We would put double 2x6 blocking in the stud bays and then lag screw the lintel to the blocking. The blocking provides a much larger landing spot for the lags; and also stiffens the wall.

I've never run any numbers on it, but I would think you could take the weight of a 1ft strip at about 75% of the height and then see if a single lag had that shear capacity.

Also, see below arrows. Do you have sloped lintels for the left and right sides? Or, do you transition to siding on the sides?

Lastly.. make sure water can get out from behind the brick at the roofline. This is a high percentage error location when it comes to flashing. My parent's home has large bricked regions above a roof line and it leaks every time we have an extended rainfall because water permeates through the clay brick; and then cannot escape.

 

[phamENG]

BIA Technical Note 28 Check out pages 4 and 5. Make sure you have considered creep deflection in that beam design. Most LVL manufacturers will tell you not to worry about it, but that's for the typical case. A very heavy, deflection sensitive load is not the normal case.