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i do alot of rehab on balloon framed houses and three deckers. the thing that baffles me is that there is not a header in the whole house. all the framing around the doors and windows looks like they just threw in lumber where they wanted to frame the openings with no regard for structural integrity.i find it hard to believe that our past brothers would have built like this and in testimony to them these houses are still standing and preforming a century later. whats the reason for this framing,would it be to allow the building to settle around the door and windows.most of these houses are on granite foundations so there must have been alot of settling. any answers????
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My house is 70 yrs. old and is balloon frame. About 40 plus yrs. ago they did an addition. They cut out about 8 feet worth of studs and instead of putting a header under the cut wall, they tacked 2x8 to the wall. The 2x8 has been carrying this opening and about 12 feet(length of kitchen ceiling to this opening) of floor joists. The ceiling is even and there is no bounce upstairs. No bearing wall upstairs. I have read that the house these days are over-engineered because of stick framing and quality of lumber. I don't know... I left it alone and just made sure the load was going to the foundation.
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i do alot of rehab on balloon framed houses and three deckers. the thing that baffles me is that there is not a header in the whole house. all the framing around the doors and windows looks like they just threw in lumber where they wanted to frame the openings with no regard for structural integrity.i find it hard to believe that our past brothers would have built like this and in testimony to them these houses are still standing and preforming a century later. whats the reason for this framing,would it be to allow the building to settle around the door and windows.most of these houses are on granite foundations so there must have been alot of settling. any answers????