framing for glass corners

[Rob Z]

Kelly

Something I've been meaning to axe you....what was the engineering involved so that the house with the glass corners would work? Or did you get some of that special "load bearing" glass for those corners?

Z

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[cx]

Wasn't no engineering, I done it myownself!

[cx]

Aaaw, that wasn't very nice, now was it?

Well, first of all, the framer was a genius, just like the designer! :-)

The outside walls of that place - which is the only walls it's got actually - are 2x6 construction with 1/2 inch plywood sheething screwed and glued everywher there isn't a window or door, which ain't a lot of places on two of the walls. That makes it fairly ridgid.

The door and window headers are continuous box beams from corner (or lack of) to corner, made of 2x8s and 2x6s, left hollow for electric runs. Then there is framing above that (both floors are 10 foot plate height) to what would normally be a top plate, except that too is mostly 2x8 box beams. Then there are other similar box beams cantilevered out over the corners where the glass is installed. At the corner areas these framing members were also screwed and glued together, with plywood screwed and glued to the outside again, all looking for rigidity while trying to keep the member as small as possible. The second floor is framed much the same as the first. The roof structure is all just 2x8 joists/rafters, the whole of it being just filled with inlsulation and finished inside with T&G Yellow Pine, as are all the walls. There is only one wall that has anything close to what you might call "normal" framing. It was mostly design-as-you-build at that stage, but it has held up for some 14 years now.

The corner glass is 1/4 inch plate with a finished edge and a hard Low E coating on the inside. It is simply stuck to the inside stop with silicon caulk, with the butt joint cemented with the same stuff. The outside stops (all stops are custom fitted from 2x stock) are siliconed also and mostly liquid nailed in place.

Only failures of the corner glass has been from insulation installers dropping scaffold board from the second floor (all the corners are open through the second floor) and what must have been a BIG bird strike a few years back.

The only outside engineering was for the 30 foot Gluelams that support the second floor and smaller ones above the second floor to support the roof. The beams all sit on 4x4 thick-wall steel posts in the wall spaces.

And the owner says it doesn't even creak in the big winds, but the biggest glass on the second floor (5x7 feet, mas o menos) moves in and out enough to make sleeping there a challenge.

It would need a lot more 'splaining, but........

Sorry you axed?

[Rob Z]

No, not at all.

Will return later to reread, to make sure I learned it proper.

More Q's ,likely.

Still think it's cool, even though I now know the secrets.

Z

[John Bridge]

I understand the framing complexities perfectly. I also understand the difficulty. What I'm having trouble understanding is the pyramid scheme. Or wait, maybe that was something I was talking to Jim Buckley about . . .