Let in brace

[RussSjoquist]

I have a customer that wants to open up an interior wall. Not connected to an exterior wall. I removed the sheetrock on one side and found a lateral brace. It is a 10 ' tall wall 20' long., non load bearing. Is it ok to open up this wall. The house is in south Carolina in an area that does not get earthquakes.

 

[Mr. Inspector]

Sounds ok to me. Braced walls are connected to the exterior walls.

 

[fatboy]

Ditto to rick, interesting though, an interior wall that had lateral bracing...........

 

[e hilton]

Maybe it was pre-built lying flat on the floor, squared, and then stood up.

 

[Sifu]

Interior, intermediate braced walls can be intersected with other interior braced wall lines. I don't think current codes would prescriptively require an interior braced wall line unless the house was pretty large, but I think the early versions of the wall bracing sections had smaller spacing for braced wall lines. Also, SC is prone to hurricanes, so if the house was designed for those forces it may have been intentional. I would try to find some original plans and think it through. Let-in bracing wouldn't be my first choice for squaring an interior wall.

 

[steveray]

Ask the local inspector...They may have insight into construction in your area....

 

[Joe.B]

There's a retired builder here that helps friends do owner-builder projects, I've seen three now that he helped with. He wants to do let-in bracing on every wall because he builds it on the floor, squares it up, then braces it. Now his wall stays square and stiff during construction. He says that while things are getting framed up he likes everything to stay still. He got in a "fight" with the engineer on the first house because the engineer who stamped the plans wouldn't allow the let-in on his bearing walls. So for bearing walls (and shear walls) he just tacks the "brace" to the studs instead of letting it in. Made him mad....

 

[Mark K]

If by open up the wall you mean to create an opening and you have any question whether the let in bracing is needed I would talk to an engineer. You have to ask why the let in bracing was installed. If it was just to square the wall act as if the let in bracing did not exist.

In general let in bracing should not be used since it weakens the studs. If you feel the need to square the wall use some of the metal straps that are applied to the face of the wall.

Let in bracing is not able to resist any significant wind or earthquake loads. If you want lateral bracing use plywood.

 

[ICE]

If by open up the wall you mean to create an opening and you have any question whether the let in bracing is needed I would talk to an engineer. You have to ask why the let in bracing was installed. If it was just to square the wall act as if the let in bracing did not exist.

In general let in bracing should not be used since it weakens the studs. If you feel the need to square the wall use some of the metal straps that are applied to the face of the wall.

Let in bracing is not able to resist any significant wind or earthquake loads. If you want lateral bracing use plywood.

Well there you have it RussSjoquist. An engineer answered the question...free of charge.

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