Hello All,
I had a quick question. My inspector disliked that I shimmed with plywood and said, “It’s like shimming with drywall, it just crushes.”
Second story walls sit on 3/4″ tongue and groove and don’t compress it… They carry all the weight of the roof load too. Is he just wrong?
Thanks,
Kevin
Replies
I shimmed a couple things with plywood.
For instance I used it on doorways headers instead of cripples, because my architect called for 4x12s. With the 4x12s cripples wouldn't fit.
It does receive bearing weight.
I just don't understand how 3/4" tongue and groove can carry walls+roof load and not compress, but he's worried about other plywood compressing.
What's the distance from the top of the header to the top plate? How many layers of plywood? Must be pretty tight if he'd like shims instead of your plywood. Your solution sounds reasonable to me if I'm picturing it correctly.
A narrow piece of coarse plywood, especially if cut the wrong direction, might tend to squeeze out some of the inner plies. Plus of course plywood can have voids.
But one's gotta wonder what you're shimming that's so heavy (and you're shimming with such small pieces) that this is a concern.
(I'm personally fond of the plastic shims.)
Unless he is comparing to meal shims for an exgtremem ;load, he is just plain full of BS. Ply wll handle a load better than a typical cedar shim. I can say this after dealing with dozens of old houses with either kind.