SethGuthrie
Structural
Community,
I’ve been looking at a 3 story condo remodel. 4 units running east west. Lowest level partial basement with garage access on one side.
Owner wants to open up a wall on the middle level which only supports a tiny amount of gravity load since the roof and floor joists are parallel to the wall, and the 3rd story is only on one side of the wall (vaulted ceiling on the other side). The original wall is 8’-6” long each side of the party wall. There is a continuous sloped skylight at the roof on both sides of the wall that seems to break the diaphragm, in my opinion. It does need to act as a shear wall for seismic loads of the 3rd level, but it’s a pretty small tributary area (<200 sf).
When they took off the dry wall they found that the wall had ½ plywood on one side, nailed like a shear wall, but the weird thing is there is nothing under the wall between the 2nd level and the basement level. The joists are 13.5” deep but not directly under the wall, no studs, or blocking, just air. There were no hold downs or anything either.
My first thought was,
did the original contractor just cover all the walls with plywood out of habit,
or did he miss something (that went unnoticed),
or is the condo so old things used to be done differently.
… Anybody see this kind of thing before (I admit wood framing is not my engineering area of expertise).
Thanks
I’ve been looking at a 3 story condo remodel. 4 units running east west. Lowest level partial basement with garage access on one side.
Owner wants to open up a wall on the middle level which only supports a tiny amount of gravity load since the roof and floor joists are parallel to the wall, and the 3rd story is only on one side of the wall (vaulted ceiling on the other side). The original wall is 8’-6” long each side of the party wall. There is a continuous sloped skylight at the roof on both sides of the wall that seems to break the diaphragm, in my opinion. It does need to act as a shear wall for seismic loads of the 3rd level, but it’s a pretty small tributary area (<200 sf).
When they took off the dry wall they found that the wall had ½ plywood on one side, nailed like a shear wall, but the weird thing is there is nothing under the wall between the 2nd level and the basement level. The joists are 13.5” deep but not directly under the wall, no studs, or blocking, just air. There were no hold downs or anything either.
My first thought was,
did the original contractor just cover all the walls with plywood out of habit,
or did he miss something (that went unnoticed),
or is the condo so old things used to be done differently.
… Anybody see this kind of thing before (I admit wood framing is not my engineering area of expertise).
Thanks
