Additional County Revisions

Tue, Jan 15, 2019

We’re getting real close (to a build permit). Last week, the county requested 4 more revisions. These were all structural requests. There is uncertainty that a couple of beams will actually hold the load they need to, and there may have been a miscommunication between the truss engineers and our structural engineer.

Chris, our structural engineer, says three of these are minor, and are mostly just clarifying the calculations that were performed for said beams (e.g., nothing to actually change). The last issue is a little bigger.

The trusses that span the garage roof and carport are partially supported by the beam that spans the garage door opening. This beam is a 4x10 and spans 16’. The county claims a maximum snow load on this roof will snap that beam! Chris confirmed that the beam was not intended to carry any snow load.

In short, the truss guys have to find a different way to support the load, or we have to increase the size of this beam (it’d have to be a 6x22 beam, which is pricey). I am told there are a couple of options regarding finding another way to support the trusses, but I do not understand them. I will let the experts work on this.

Lastly, the county is concerned about the construction of the masonry fireplace we are wanting to build outside for the covered deck. Actually, it’s the chimney they are concerned about. The chimney has to be so tall to clear the roof, and with wind, snow, and seismic activity, they are concerned that I have not called out reinforcement details in the plans.

I’ve got to be honest, I am a bit worn down. The county’s plan examiner was kind enough to send me copies of all the sections of code she wants called out in the plans. So I could potentially just do some copy-paste here, but I don’t know when we’d even build this fireplace. I’ve been working on setting a schedule for the next two years of the build, and there is absolutely no time to build this fireplace. Hiring a professional would add a sizable expense to the budget. Even if we can get it built in these first two years, it won’t ever be used during that time. We are going to be far too busy!

The alternative is to nix the fireplace from the plans today, and file for a small-addition permit when we’re ready to build the fireplace. And that’s what we chose to do. So now we just need the structural guys to figure out this truss issue and we should be set!

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