DuckBuster
New member
- Joined
- Oct 24, 2005
- Messages
- 16
I'm sorry to hear about your ordeal. I have built a few houses myself and have run into similar problems that felt exactly as you do. Most of the time, I ended up fixing the problem myself. There is not much else you can do, and in my opinion, the time & stress you are going to go through to "get back" at this guy are not going to be worth it. In fact you will probably be worse off for the effort. Try your best to forgive and forget and you will learn a very valuable lesson. Life is too short to spend your time getting even with someone who obviously doesn't really give a crap.
I also want to point out that while everyone here is trying to give you suggestions on how a header should be framed, don't take their word as the bible truth either. I can tell you that anyone who has picked up a hammer, been to Home Depot, or watched an episode of This Old House claims to know all there is about construction. Worse yet are framers/carpenters with their "cuz my daddy did it that way" mentality. As a practicing Structural Engineer (100% Residential & Light Commercial) I can assure you that the only way to size a header and it's associated jack/king studs are to know the loads that are bearing on that header. You can tell us that you have 6' o.c. trusses that are sitting right in the middle of the header span, but there is still plenty of information needed in order to establish what load that truss is transferring down to that header.
I have to admit, that I and several other engineers in my office got quite a kick out of your picture. We are constantly making field visits/repairs to fix what the framers screw up, but I've never seen that one before. The single top plate is also a sign the guy didn't care, but that may be the way they frame a house in Wisconsin..... Definately not acceptable down here in Florida. Bottom line, you aren't going to end up getting a building correctly designed without giving the plans to an engineer. That builder you are about to use probably won't build your new building right either if you don't. Also, don't rely on a high school (at best) educated building inspector to catch the flaws in your construction. In fact, they have no liability to do so. If you want a building/house built right, get it engineered by someone who specializes in light construction (i.e. don't call a bridge engineer).
By the way, I'd say that "header" is working based on the empirical evidence that your window's glass is not broken. He must have nailed the heck out of it.
I also want to point out that while everyone here is trying to give you suggestions on how a header should be framed, don't take their word as the bible truth either. I can tell you that anyone who has picked up a hammer, been to Home Depot, or watched an episode of This Old House claims to know all there is about construction. Worse yet are framers/carpenters with their "cuz my daddy did it that way" mentality. As a practicing Structural Engineer (100% Residential & Light Commercial) I can assure you that the only way to size a header and it's associated jack/king studs are to know the loads that are bearing on that header. You can tell us that you have 6' o.c. trusses that are sitting right in the middle of the header span, but there is still plenty of information needed in order to establish what load that truss is transferring down to that header.
I have to admit, that I and several other engineers in my office got quite a kick out of your picture. We are constantly making field visits/repairs to fix what the framers screw up, but I've never seen that one before. The single top plate is also a sign the guy didn't care, but that may be the way they frame a house in Wisconsin..... Definately not acceptable down here in Florida. Bottom line, you aren't going to end up getting a building correctly designed without giving the plans to an engineer. That builder you are about to use probably won't build your new building right either if you don't. Also, don't rely on a high school (at best) educated building inspector to catch the flaws in your construction. In fact, they have no liability to do so. If you want a building/house built right, get it engineered by someone who specializes in light construction (i.e. don't call a bridge engineer).
By the way, I'd say that "header" is working based on the empirical evidence that your window's glass is not broken. He must have nailed the heck out of it.
