Yankee Chronicler
REGISTERED
A restaurant in town is erecting a 30-foot x 120-foot pre-engineered steel building as an expanded dining area attached to their existing building. From the very start, back in late winter/early spring, they have resisted every request for proper construction documents. When we finally got to what was supposed to a plan that was close enough to approve a foundation-only permit, of course they forged right ahead and also framed the floor (the entire building will have a full basement, for storage).
Now they're siding the structure, and the guys found that they're moved the exit doors -- with no amended drawings having been submitted. The X-bracing for the pre-engineered frames hasn't been installed. And they're framing a huge barn door in one end wall -- which, of course, is supposed to have X-bracing right through where the door is being framed..
"Why would you need a huge barn door in a dining room?" you might ask. Good question. The answer is that they own a railroad caboose that they plan to roll in and out of the space for seasonal "decor." Problem -- a caboose weighs somewhere between 50,000 and 80,000 pounds. I found plans for a fairly typical looking caboose that showed the trucks spaced 20 feet apart -- the wheelbase. Standard railroad gauge is 4'-8" for wheel track width. There's a line of columns along the buildng centerline in the basement at 30 feet on center. If I take a 5-foot strip of one bay I get a code-mandated live load of 30' x 5' x 100 = 15,000 pounds (uniformly distributed). Now they want to roll in a train car that's going to put four 20,000 pound concentrated loads onto a strip of floor that was probably only designed to hold 15,000 pounds total. (I'm betting they didn't tell the structural engineer to design for a caboose in the dining room.)
And when we tell them they need to provide structural calculations showing that the floor will support the load, they'll throw a hissy fit and accuse us of just trying to be obstructive.
I love my work but I don't always love the people we have to deal with. You just can't make this stuff up.
Now they're siding the structure, and the guys found that they're moved the exit doors -- with no amended drawings having been submitted. The X-bracing for the pre-engineered frames hasn't been installed. And they're framing a huge barn door in one end wall -- which, of course, is supposed to have X-bracing right through where the door is being framed..
"Why would you need a huge barn door in a dining room?" you might ask. Good question. The answer is that they own a railroad caboose that they plan to roll in and out of the space for seasonal "decor." Problem -- a caboose weighs somewhere between 50,000 and 80,000 pounds. I found plans for a fairly typical looking caboose that showed the trucks spaced 20 feet apart -- the wheelbase. Standard railroad gauge is 4'-8" for wheel track width. There's a line of columns along the buildng centerline in the basement at 30 feet on center. If I take a 5-foot strip of one bay I get a code-mandated live load of 30' x 5' x 100 = 15,000 pounds (uniformly distributed). Now they want to roll in a train car that's going to put four 20,000 pound concentrated loads onto a strip of floor that was probably only designed to hold 15,000 pounds total. (I'm betting they didn't tell the structural engineer to design for a caboose in the dining room.)
And when we tell them they need to provide structural calculations showing that the floor will support the load, they'll throw a hissy fit and accuse us of just trying to be obstructive.
I love my work but I don't always love the people we have to deal with. You just can't make this stuff up.
