we’re building a house to international code, and cant seem to get a straight answer fot the inspector on this so maybe someone out there could help us out. when framing a windwo to the international code, do the jacks have to be a full jack or can they be a cut jack, thanks for your help guys
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Cut as in cut to receive the sill? Go to Borders or Barnes and Nobles, if either is nearby. They should have copies of the IRC for sale, and you could take a peek, or borrow one from the local code enforcer, or buy one. I have seen them cut plenty of times, but with a jack from header to sill, supported by a cripple directly below. Then again, I am from Maine and ain't that smaht.
Dustin
Know what's funny 'bout that?I never saw the split jack 'till I moved to Maine. IT saves lumber and damn yankees being so frugal and all....
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Idon't know the ccode, but I would bet that it does not adress the method, only the results. IOW, designed to withstand the loads it will bear.
I have done it both ways and would expect that in some marginal cases, I would need an extra king stud when doing a split jack to handle the lateral wind loading.
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Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime.
where ...
Excellence is its own reward!
Do you want to save on wood and crib together a stack of off-cut scraps?
It's a good question, however, and one I just asked my engineer regarding door jacks.
I found nothing in my code books to say you can't have a segmented jack but there might be something hidden in the BI's standard office procedures that would prevail. It's also a call that could be made by a BI just because he has the final say.
The answer from my engineer was yes, go ahead with the two pieces but nail them well to the kings, don't miss any of the nails in the sheathing that covers the jacks and use a metal strap on the inside to reinforce the joint. That strap, IMO, is overkill, but, what the heck, if the engineer signs off on it, fine.
Althought the jacks are there to direct the load spread by the header, we couldn't find any reason to expect the jacks to kick out or otherwise fail in compression, just because they were segmented. If that were the case, just about every other stacked arrangement in framing would be suspect.