Older home has stepped foundation, a good portion of the perimeter has rebuilt pony walls between the concrete stem wall and the bottom plate of the first floor system. (pony and first floor are 2×8 doug fir)
The first story full height walls above the pony walls are already sheathed with plywood.
My question is, what are my options to add shear strength between the seismic anchored pony walls and the rest of the structure? I would prefer not replacing all the current plywood. Would the use of Simpson clips like the LTP4 qualify or is that asking too much?
See image for better description.
Replies
I'm not sure this is viable...
Is there any way you could 'let in' diagonal bracing? Set your saw to 2" for depth of cut and snap diagonal lines to match either a 2x4 or 6" brace width and cut through the sheathing and framing. Pull nails from the sheathing after indexing the sheathing with some pencil slashes then make repeated passes over the framing sections to snap out the 1 1/2" deep chunks and clean out with a chisel. Once you have the line cut completely, you could anchor the brace into the framing then top it off with the plywood you saved. Again, I'm not sure this is even viable but it would allow you to tie in the pony walls with the upper walls without having to get overly extravagent with allthread or metal fixtures. Just be sure to check with local codes to see if this is sufficient to do what you need.
Seems to me it would be best to pull off some of the sheathing and slip it down (or replace with 12-footers, if you can find them), then patch in pieces at the top as needed.
You shouldn't have to pull all the plywood, just every 3rd/4th piece.