Hello....
Alex with Soft-Story Retrofit Pros.
Hey I want to give you an update on our
project over here in West LA. We are working on a Soft-Story Retrofit at the
front of the building - Let me walk you through what we've done so far
So check it out!
in other projects you've heard me talk about some of the "hidden" things that we
have to deal with when you remove the stucco ...this is a scenario we had to make
some adjustments to the plans, once we got the stucco off.
in this particular case
we have to put in a new LVL Beam (that's this new beam up here) Because the
opening was sagging
on top of that was a 2x4 cripple wall.
That wall was
definitely too small for what we needed it to do.
Remember the idea here is that we
can transfer the seismic force (load) back into our solution which in this case is
Steel Strong-Walls (SSW) made by Simpson Strong-Tie
Up here we've got the diaphragm put in the
sheathing on top of the cripple wall
that sits on top of the LVL Beam
the LVL Beam is connected to the Steel Strong-Wall (SSW)
which is then inside or rests on
top of a new grade beam
This is definitely an upgrade in the foundation
...an upgrade in the support of the corner of the building
and it definitely
is a substantial upgrade to the top members
in this case we had to deal with
it two affects, the Lateral Forces that the ordinance requires that we resist
and because the Glulam Beam 'well' the existing doug-fir beam was undersized
there were gravity load issues.
We're solving both of those problems
If you do not remove the stucco before you begin construction
you're gonna very likely have to make some adjustments so on all of our jobs
now when we're assessing a project we must open up the stucco so that we can
see what the actual site condition is believe me your tenants and your
neighbors are going to be happier because the retrofit process will be a
lot shorter if you do a little bit more groundwork, in the beginning, you solve a
lot of the delays during construction
So let's give you just a quick little tour
of what we've done so far and what we have to do to finish this project up
So we're in the center of the building there's three Steel Simpson Strong-Walls (SSW)
on this project and on top of that is your LVL connection beam the plans we've
got two straps on each side and then we also have two straps on the top rim
where there is a splice
so on this project on any splices you're
gonna have CMST strapped on top & bottom
and that solves a lot of the issues
related to the splice, again we have a continuous sheathing this is a new
diaphragm that we're creating on top of the cripple wall by the way this
crippled wall is huge it's about 2x14 dimension lumber - it can withstand well
over a hundred thousand pounds of force (100,000 lbf)
which is WAY more than we actually need
so let's move over to this section
ok we're on the far end of the building this is the corner
this building is kind of interesting
in the sense that it has some diagonal framing on the end here
most of the buildings that we've come across
don't have that - that's good - so here we've got
our third panel connected to the LVL and the blocking the
Idea again is that on
the corners these are the most critical sections right, so we added a lot of new
lumber and a lot of new heavy screws and heavy nails to predictably get a
load path that can resist the the seismic force hitting this corner
this section is probably 30 times stronger than it was before we did the retrofit it's
really important that you spend a lot of time analyzing how you're going to
prepare the building for the new steel members and it's really important that
you prepare the building to do a proper predictable transfer of force back into
this that then goes into the foundation
I hope that you found this video
interesting if you want to learn more about Soft-Story Retrofitting
please visit us at www.softstoryretrofitpros.com
We have blog articles and videos and we help you
walk through the process of getting the retrofit done correctly on your property
My name is Alex with Bay Cities Construction - Soft Story Retrofit Pros
reminding you -
you don't need a contractor...
You need a team of pros!
[walks out of frame]