No head space for garage door header
The house plan I am working on has a band of transom-sized awning windows jammed up high, and we want the look to carry to the garage. The 9/0 x 7/9 garage doors will thus each have three transoms sitting right over. Wall height is such that we only have room for 6″ of header height.
Since it is a hipped roof, and we are dealing with a 90 psf snow loading, we’ll head the doors each with a piece of 6W15 steel. I am envisioning the transom frames hung with short lengths of allthread rod, bolts holding it to the steel. Those paired 5/4 x 6 intermediate frame parts are plowed so the rod is housed between.
If you have done this, and can suggest something easier and more elegant, please advise. The first pic shows the garage, no transom windows yet over doors, and the next shows an x-ray view of the steel and wood proposed arrangement.
Replies
This type of steel beam is easy to work with so I think it looks good and makes sense.
Beer was created so carpenters wouldn't rule the world.
There is a good reason the 60's style of awning windows died.
Hire an architect.... Please.
Sledge, the house is by someone with AIA after her name.
I'm only attaching a garage to it. I almost got a DWD after my name tonight.
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"A stripe is just as real as a dadgummed flower."
Gene Davis 1920-1985
what reason might that be? Please enlighten us.
Real hard to tell from the elevation, but can the beam be moved up into the roof structure and be incorporated there somehow?
I love transom windows BTW.
Check out Simpson (yea the connector co.) I just saw an ad they had for seemingly this type of application. Seemed like you could just order it and bolt together on site.
View ImageYou are talking about the new pre-engineered moment frames, which in this case would be a good idea (to avoid racking) and which may, depending upon your locale, be required by code anyway.
However, just browsing the tables seems to indicate that the minimum top size is 8"
Link to tables - http://www.strongtie.com/products/strongframe/models.asp
Jeff
Edited 11/29/2008 8:34 am ET by Jeff_Clarke
No seismic required where he lives.
Gene, that is the only way I can think of doing.
Makes sense to me. I think you did a nice job. Options would be treat it like a bridge and provide support through a cable or rod ... it would pass by the windows, but it is just a garage. If you needed racking resistance, you could do a steel rod cross buck ... again it would run through the window opening. If you have tinted or mirrored window, you wouldn't see it most of the time from the outside. Another might be run cables down the end and across the bottom ... post tension. These would be engineered solutions. The BO will have to approve any of it as elluded to in another post (referring to the Simpson solution).
You could also use a regular header and have fake transoms in front of it.
Gene,
A Vierendeel truss.
That's a truss in which every connection is a moment connection and all joints are square. Your transoms can fit between the top and bottom chords between the vertical members. You won't gain too much height that way.
Ron
I wonder if you couldn't incorporate a steel truss into the roof structure, set back several feet from the front wall. Have the truss bear on pilasters on the sides and make the front wall non-load-bearing. Cantilever the front part of the roof.
Will the site allow for lowering the drive and garage floor?
Will the site allow for lowering the drive and garage floor?
No.
It seems to me that if a double LVL header is OK over a garage door opening, jammed right up under the top plates of the wall, that a substitution of a small steel beam to do the same job doesn't really detract anything.
I pasted in some transom windows. The trussed roof has a large overhang, and the top of the wall is buried up into the soffit seen here.
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"A stripe is just as real as a dadgummed flower."
Gene Davis 1920-1985
It seems to me that if a double LVL header is OK over a garage door opening, jammed right up under the top plates of the wall, that a substitution of a small steel beam to do the same job doesn't really detract anything.
Why use steel when you can use an lvl? If a 6" lvl isn't big enough butted tight to the top plates, why not eliminate the top plates and put a 9" lvl in there. You don't need top plates. There's no reason to use steel when wood works.
The steel causes nothing but problems for nailing into. Don't you have to nail the windows to the steel? Is the bottom of the steel the rough opening for the window? If so, you have to furr thew steel out to nail the windows too, no? Lvl, your done.
Joe Carola
what about putting the LVL/beam in the roof or at least in th epath of the rafters above the GDO wall? Hangars on both sides, one for the trusses and the other for short triangle shaped trusses to complete the roofline for the OH.
What's the roof pitch?
Now there's the idea I was looking for!
Thanks for thinking outside the box. Actually, this concept is inside the box.
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"A stripe is just as real as a dadgummed flower."
Gene Davis 1920-1985
glad I could help. You can call it the 7g Beam if you want.
But what's the pitch & overhang? I want to build a working drawing/model to see the details for myself.
I have built an entire house with beams above the top plate to allow for windows that go to the ceiling.
You would not believe the pain it is to bring different pitch hips together to equalize the overhangs.
ANDYSZ2WHY DO I HAVE TO EXPLAIN TO FRIENDS AND FAMILY THAT BEING A SOLE PROPRIETOR IS A REAL JOB?
REMODELER/PUNCHOUT SPECIALIST
Gene, John7g
this is what s crough suggested in post number 5. Not to take anything away from john, who without doubt came up with it independently, but credit should be given where it is due.
ron
Thank's Ron
To be fair though John was more erudite in his description.
ain't no telling if I read your post (or even DanH's now that I've reread this thread) with my swiss cheese memory and a plethroa of distractions oince I do start reading as of late to spark my post or it was independent electrons forming it.
either case, here's to having the in-laws on their way home.
cheers
Not quite true. What was suggested that lit the spark in my head, was to raise the beam up, hang the trusses from the beam, and hang little monotrusses outside to accomplish the overhang.
Mr Budgell in post 5 suggested a beam incorporated into the truss system. This is not incorporating a beam into trusses, this is raising the wall and hanging trusses from its top beam, both sides.
The geometry gives me plenty of height for a beam, and still gives me plenty of room to bridge over the beam with extended top chords of the monotrusses, to tie them to the trusses inside.
The question now, really, is how much the cost of the kinky truss arrangement exceeds the cost of a plain set, and how that cost, to which we'll add some cost for the LVLs and extended height wall, compares to the cost for a couple of 6W15s.
I've a feeling that the steel way is the cheaper way. There is plenty of steel in the adjacent house, so a little more won't seem too bad.
I've detailed fabricated structural steel into a lot of what I've done, and always get it shop punched so that lagscrews readily attach 2x lumber to it. Framing around steel and with steel is easy.
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"A stripe is just as real as a dadgummed flower."
Gene Davis 1920-1985
Gene,
Right, Note, I wasn't rying to claim credit for myself. I had no part of this idea. My suggestion was a specialty truss, a Vierendeel, which would also have to be steel.
Steel is pretty easy to deal with. As you say, you can get it predrilled for very little extra cost or you can ramset wood to it, even wire wood on. Not a big problem.
Ron
Gene,
Why are you making this project more complicated than it should be? Why would you put a beam up into the rafters and then hang therm when you can just cut out the top plates and put a 9" header in and not hang anything?
The idea about a beam above is a great one if you had no other choice. You have a 9' opening with a one story hip roof above. a 3-1/2"x 9" lvl (ripped slightly)is plenty for that. Why not use that?
Joe Carola
Because I have a 90 pound snow load to contend with, Joe. This ain't NJ.
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"A stripe is just as real as a dadgummed flower."
Gene Davis 1920-1985
Because I have a 90 pound snow load to contend with, Joe. This ain't NJ.
That's not answering my question. I know it's not NJ, that's why I asked if you can use a 3-1/2x9" lvl. How do you know that won't work? I assumed is was a 2x4 wall, is it? If not and it's a 2x6 wall, can you use a 5-1/2x9" lvl?
How do you know that putting a beam above the top plate will work without stick up above the HAP cut of the rafters? If that's the case would you adjust the truss so this doesn't happen, or would you just cut out the top plates and lower the beam so that it doesn't stick above the rafters?
It seems to me that if a double LVL header is OK over a garage door opening, jammed right up under the top plates of the wall, that a substitution of a small steel beam to do the same job doesn't really detract anything.
This is why I asked about using a 9" lvl. If it works, why not use it.
Joe Carola
He could fletch 2x10's with1/2 steel and do better than lvl, I think.
If you order a Better Header - you get pre-attached wood and flush fasteners.
http://betterheader.com/
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Jeff
OK, everybody, I wuz overreacting, thinking 90 psf snow was a big deal.
Joe's remarks got me to thinking.
So I trussed this thing, and when running the hipsets out over the garage doors, with the girder trusses bearing on the sidewalls, the loads on the headers come way down. Then I figured I could stuff the wall tops up into the roof so as to get room for 2x10 headers, and voila!
A clean solution.
Walls are 2x4, the header is a pair within the wall, flush to the inside, and a third 2x10 sisters to the wall pair, bearing on flatwise 2x6s spiked to the inside of the cripple studs. That's the setup for the garage door hardware.
The window opening horizontals match those in the adjacent breezeway and house, so the horizontal trim lines will be the way we want, and everything will look good.
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"A stripe is just as real as a dadgummed flower."
Gene Davis 1920-1985
Edited 11/30/2008 2:46 pm ET by Gene_Davis
Gene, Steel I beam with 2x infill at the web (either through bolted or bolted to welded studs) and then instead of the all thread I would just have threaded studs welded on to the bottom of the beam to bolts a wood plate to.
Standard framing down to the bottom of the windows/top of door opening and sheath both sides with plywood. Use a narrow (1 3/4) LVL laid on it's side as the framing member at the top of the door opening to provide lateral rigidity to the door opening.
I also agree to the idea of the beam raised and hanging the trusses. Doing the same thing in some areas of the roof on my current project.
Be nice if you could get the top chord of the truss to run continuous though with the beam in a pocket.
They can't get your Goat if you don't tell them where it is hidden.
I know this idea is not as nice as what you want but...
Why not skip the transom windows and make the garage doors taller with a a row of windows across the top of the doors.
It would sort of ape the look you want, be cheaper, and give you more head room into the garage.
I'd make (fake) ones and attach them on the out side of the shell..carrying the line across the front of the house and garage.
What do you think.
"Gentle to the touch, exquisite to contemplate, tractable in creative hands, stronger by weight than iron, wood is, as William Penn had said,"a substance with a soul.'"
Eric Sloane
I'm pretty certain you could get by with lvl here as drawn, but here's another idea if the plan would allow: could you step the garage (o.h.d.) wall back? This would allow you to frame the headers pretty much any way you want at the overhead doors, and you could still maintain your awning windows on the "front" wall of the garage. This may look better than having all the windows and doors flush on one big wall and break up the monotony of the garage, just a thought.
Hey Gene, I do not care what way you frame it, but I certainly admire and applaud you for trying to stick to and emulate the original architectural interpretation.
Way too many B!!!!sturdised additions out there already