Screen Porch Addition

[mijowe]

I have a screen porch addition, built next to a house. It will be at the 2nd floor and will have a roof. The floor framing will be parallel to the house as will the rafters. The existing exterior wall has brick veneer. The porch is of decent size so i will have 9 posts, in a 3x3 grid. The architect currently wants to clad the post in brick to make a pier, and does not want to see any braces.

My question is stability of the addition. I have never been crazy about bolting a ledger thru the brick veneer to the floor framing to tie the addition into the existing house. However, I do see this type of detail a lot.

Lacing, braces, embedding the posts are all other options as well.

Any thoughts on what other people have done with this condition would be appreciated.

 

[JAE]

For a major floor/roof addition I would never consider suspending it by a bolted ledger through face brick veneer.

I would run beams through holes in the brick veneer and tie into the existing floor structure and add vertical supports in the existing exterior wall to take loads down to the foundation.

Depending on the floor and roof diaphragm to cantilever out and laterally brace the addition would take some study to verify that the existing house structure can take it - probably can't without some strapping and blocking in the existing diaphragms to successfully transfer the chord forces.

 

[msquared48]

Depending on the size of the addition, it may be possible to cantilever the new roof diaphragm off the existing roof.

The floor structure is another matter. You might have to use a one, or, if you wish, a two story steel moment frame at the exterior wall. Will be pricey, but then, so are the dreams of many Architects.

Mike McCann
MMC Engineering
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