Head(er) scratcher...

[RicodJour]

The project I'm working on now was just made much more interesting by the sins of some hack who decided to widen the old window's 69" rough opening width for a new 72" triple casement by cutting the jack and king studs off flush with the bottom of the header. The short stub remnant of the king stud was left in place and a stud was nailed onto the side of that.

In other words, the header is supported by one stud nailed to a piece of blocking (ex-king stud) that's nailed to the end of the header. Not surprisingly, this did not work very well and the sagging has caused the casements to bind. The one end has dropped about 1/2". Luckily he did this surgery on two window openings so I get to practice on one and perfect my technique!

My question: has anyone else encountered a similar header-stretching exercise, and if so, how did you handle it?

R

[tbasc]

I've never seen one like that, thankfully. In the 130 mph wind gust, D seismic area of Charleston, inspectors would require the framing to be made to meet standard practice. TB

[tbasc]

Sometimes they check on home owners and some times they don't. I got an inspector stopping work on my basement, a conditioned space, because it didn't have enough insulation in the ceiliing - the floor of my living room. The guy across the street had me design an addition which was approved by board of architects and building department, then built something different.. Complaints to the City produced shrugs and "we can't be bothered with little stuff." TB

[Duane Bozarth]

Do they come inspect homeowner retrofits too? ;)

[Duane Bozarth]

Can't say as I have...guess how you attack it depends on how far back you want to go...

Probably simplest would be to splice onto the existing header w/ metal gusset to stiffen it up sufficiently. Assuming you've got tubafore walls there should be a half inch spacer you can hack out to replace w/ a section of (predrilled) 1/2" plate....

Some variation of that trick would be where I'm guessing I'd start from the description, not having seen the actual situation...

[Banty]

Right.

Are permits needed for replacing windows (even putting in real windows, not replacement windows...)??!? If that's true in my town, I and a lot of other folks are screwed, because we haven't been getting permits...

Banty

[Duane Bozarth]

That's the point...a guy changes a double door to a slider off the back of his house on his own--how they going to even know? 90% of the time he won't pull a permit so unless there's a nosy neighbor, he does whatever and covers it up...

Saying they wouldn't allow it in your area has no bearing on the question--they "wouldn't have allowed it" in the OP's area either if they had known about it...

[Ken]

Can you get away with a 72" RO?

If so, then I'm not sure why the hack cut out the king studs in addition to the jack studs. If just the jack studs were removed you could put in metal hangers to attach the header to the king studs, and everything would have been fine and you would have a 72" RO. If this would work, you could reinstall the bottom half of the cut off king studs, then use metal hangers. Would probably require sistering a stud to the side of the newly reformed king studs, which would require tearing out drywall above the header in the vicinity of the upper half of the king studs. But that's less drywall patching than if you take out the whole header.

Ken

[Duane Bozarth]

Strictly speaking, they (the jurisdicition) may think so if it changes the structure in any way. Practically speaking, almost everybody will ignore doing so for very minor work they do themselves and there's no practical way for them to enforce it. Of course, if you go to a contractor for some remodeling they will most likely pull a permit simply to keep themselves safe unless they are used to operating "under the table", so to speak...

[RicodJour]

It is a thought to shift the opening over a stud, cutting the unhacked side jack stud, and use header hangers on both sides. I was concentrating on supporting the one side, but your way would be easier in a lot of ways. I'd have to do a little patching of the sheathing and drywall on the one side, but anyway you look at it I'll have to do patching.

The killer is that the upstairs bedroom was just painted a of couple months ago with Ralph Lauren designer faux-type paint. There's no way I can patch and match that. I guess either way we'll have to paint the entire wall.

Thanks for the idea, Ken.

R