Recommend best header makeup for energy
Wall height is 8′-1 1/8″. All rough openings in exterior walls are to be at 82 1/4″ height. Subtract the double top plate and you get 11-7/8″.
Wall height is 8′-1 1/8″. All rough openings in exterior walls are to be at 82 1/4″ height. Subtract the double top plate and you get 11-7/8″.
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Replies
Depends on the width of your openings. 2x6 walls I assume? What kind of insulation in the walls?
2x6 walls. What I am wondering is whether 1.25 LSL rimboard, available in long lengths at the depth (11-7/8") needed, is too much cost, in both material and labor.
A foot of such rimboard is about twice the cost of a foot of #2 SPF 2x12.
Structurally, it is more than adequate. What I like is that our local place for EIFS stuff stocks EPS board in 3" thickness (24x48 sheets) and 3" is the exact cavity size (1.25 + 3 + 1.25) to pack out to the 5.5 needed.
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"A stripe is just as real as a dadgummed flower."
Gene Davis 1920-1985
With a single LSL header you wouldn't have nailing at the bottom of the header on one side or the other. I might suggest using a 2x6 on the flat for the bottom of the header, with a 2x ripped to 10 3/8" to carry the load.
Have you looked into these?http://www.ebuild.com/articles/471008.hwxJoe Carola
Yes, and that is where I get the idea.
While our silly local yard is still showing pieces of this as samples, it appears as if I-Level is no longer making and selling the product. It used to be in their literature, but no more.
Out in the midwest, a Wisconsin outfit called Superior Wood Products has been making insulated headers for years, and still is. See details here.
95 percent of residential framing in northeast IN got done by Amish crews when I was living there, and you would see these getting used on every single opening of a house, everywhere. One bearded guy would chainsaw them up as a batch, right after a deck would get snapped out.
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"A stripe is just as real as a dadgummed flower."
Gene Davis 1920-1985
Seems like it would work. I'd have to wonder about the strength of the nailed connection between the king studs and the edge nailed 1.25 LSL rimboard. Probably be OK, but here we would have to get the whole thing signed off by an engineer.
What is the width of the openings? In some places a single 2X10 with a 2X6 on the bottom to form an L works. Fill in front of the 2X10 with foam. Then a strip of plywood as a filler to give you the right height.
2x4 or 2x6 framing?
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Gene, If energy is the primary concern, plywood box beams would probably be the best.
Joe H
Gene
Why don't you use a plywood box beam design.
You would have to rip 2x6 down to 4.5" but you could fill the core with XPS or blow them with cellulose.
Rich
I recently used 2 full size LVL's, 1-3/4", making a sandwich with 2" EPS foam. Then 2x6 on the bottom. Clamping helps, since 2x6's seem to be more like 5-3/8" nowadays.
This sketch shows the makeup with 1-1/4" rimboard and 3" foam. For header makeup, one would need to cut rimboard lineals to the scheduled lengths, rip and crosscut the foam per the schedule, then use foam-glue like from Dap or Liquid Nails to sandwich-laminate the stuff together.
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I've examined the foam the supplier stocks, and the rimboard at the lumberyard, and everything seems to be precise enough, dimensionally, for this to go together well.
In all, it is really like what Weyerhaeuser's Trus Joist MacMillan (now I-Level) used to sell, but no longer does. They called it the Insulated Header, and IIRC, the board parts were the same 1.25 thickness I plan for here.
Here is the cost workup. I'll make it a simple comparo and just look at the LSL versus #2 SPF 2x12 costs. Let's say a typical window needs 3.5 l.f. of header, and thus a header of each type would use 7 l.f. of board. Let's call labor and foam the same.
At today's costs where I am, I get a little under $10 per window as a premium cost, for doing this with the LSL-foam lamination, versus doing it with sawn lumber.
But, in sawn lumber, with foam in the middle, who is really doing it as a three-piece sandwich? I think there is a little more labor and material in a header made up in a more conventional way, than what I use for the comparo here.
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"A stripe is just as real as a dadgummed flower."
Gene Davis 1920-1985
What's the point of the foam glue?http://www.tvwsolar.com
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If things loosen up
I was thinking of these as maybe shop-made, off-site. Or maybe made in one batch, on-site, at the end of the day before use. The glue is just here and there, just enough dabs to make the thing handle like a unit Small pieces of foam can be no fun to handle on a jobsite.
Laying up parts on the deck for spiking things together, it would be my preference to have the header as one part.
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"A stripe is just as real as a dadgummed flower."
Gene Davis 1920-1985
I've been doing a 2x6 flat wise on the bottom, then nailing up double 2x stock for the actual header. Fill the void on the interior side of the header with EPS foam blocks. Not as good as a foam sandwich in terms of thermal bridging, but the cost and effort is minimal.
Gene
Here is the APA site I was refering to.
Then you could fill the void with your choice of insulation.
http://www.apawood.org/pdfs/managed/Z416.pdf?CFID=6909442&CFTOKEN=31910354
Rich