two months ago we opened up the kitchen in a house
We removed bearing wall between kitchen and living room in a 1960’s brick house
We removed about 6 feet of wall and installed a large header per engineer’s specifications.
We installed the drywall and put it all back together and the drywall finished came in and did a good job of finishing the drywall and making everything look good.
A couple of weeks later we notice a minor diagonal crack had occurred in the drywall in the corner area of the new opening (where the king stud and trimmer stud are located)
We used two trimmer studs.
Did we do something wrong to cause the crack in the drywall?
Thanks for any input
Replies
Go under the house and check if you have solid foundation support under the two bearing points of the 6'-0" beam. The header may support the load above. the foundation also need to support the load .
Thanks for your infoThis house has a finished basement There is a wall in the basement directly underneath
You need to verify that the load path has direct bearing on either a foundation or other framing.
ie: do those trimmers have something solid beaneath them to carry the load down to that wall you mentioned, or are they just sitting on the end of the 2x4 bottom plate in the middle of a joist bay?
"When the spirits are low, when the day appears dark, when work becomes monotonous, when hope hardly seems worth having, just mount a bicycle and go out for a spin down the road, without thought on anything but the ride you are taking." — Sherlock Holmes, 1896
Thanks - and to answer your question - I don't know and I'll take a look.Thanks for the excellent information.
The header is directly above an 8" steel I beam in the basement that runs the length of the basement. Thanks again for your input
But what is between the trimmers and the steel beam? Plywood subfloor and airspace or a single floor joist?That load can be crushing the longitudinal wood fibers if you have 4.5" of loaded posting bearing on 1/5" of floor joist.Also, do not assume because it is a steel beam, that it was engineered for a point load like that if there is no post nearby. You could be getting deflection in the beam
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
Odds are it was caused by the framing drying out and shrinking... very common.
PaulB
http://www.makeabettertomorrow.com
http://www.finecontracting.com
That makes sense - thanks for the infoThis is a fixer upper house and so there is no homeowner to answer to.If I were doing this for a homeowner I guess I would have some explaining to do if they asked me why the wall is cracking.Thanks again.
The combination of the double trimmers (jack studs) and the king stud forms a point load on the floor just them.
>> This house has a finished basement There is a wall in the basement directly underneath << And the basement wall is a load bearing wall - right? A clue would be if the floor joists are spliced above it. Just because a wall is sitting on (4"?) of concrete doesn't make it load bearing. Is the basement wall parallel to the 1st floor wall above? Which way do the joists run? Is the basement finished?
The framing wood has to be solid below the trimmers to the top of the basement wall. So, without going through all the scenarios, if there isn't a double joist directly below the trimmers, there needs to be blocks the height of the floor system added - for example 9.25" blocks for a 2x10 floor system - directly under the trimmers to the top of the wall. Really there should be 2 or 2 studs in the basement wall directly below the trimmers too.
Attached are some very quick drawings of a possible scenario.
Edited 4/25/2009 11:44 am ET by Matt
Wow, thanks so muchI'll take a look and get back with more accurate detailsAgain thank you
Good job!
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
Thanks... yea, I could have done some more drawings, etc, but you know how it is.... gotta conserve time...
Thing is - an engineer should have speced this all the way thru, not just the header/beam size, even if all he did was note typical detailing.
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
I guess different priced engineers do different things, and some is always left up to the builder/carpenters. "It's a field decision" - how many times have I heard that... :-) Here, if squash blocks are required - particularly on trussed or I-joist floor systems, it's never on the plan... That's what we get paid the big bucks for... right??? I gotta run now - my man is here to change the oil and wax my Benz... :-)
Normally a diag crack there is likely to be from solid lumber header shrinking. I don't know if your header was wood or LVL or something else.
The other thing open from your description is what you did to th e foundation to support this. You mentioned the engineered header, but you also created a rather large point load under the trimmer studs. What was speced and what did you do to handle that? If nothing, the trimmers could be settling or deflecting floor under them
Welcome to the
Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime.
where ...
Excellence is its own reward!