And a lot of my friends always say “lets go camping”. My answer… no thanks, I have to live like that on a daily basis in my work environment. I want running water and a full bathroom when I go on vacation.
Phew! wow!! what a day!! I imagine you looked like this at one point ~X(
Good thing you like challenges, right? @-)
Coralbrook, MaineLonghorn is a structural engineer, IIRC!
I have a 22 foot long 18 inch high steel C-beam with a 3/8" think plate welded to the bottom holding up my kitchen.
When it arrived from the steel company, the truck was accompanied by a bunch of very strong men, who hooked some sort of handles to it, and then carried it into position. They used simple hydraulic jacks to jack it up in the air, allowing the support beams to be put in place.
My structural engineer said they do this kind of stuff all the time. You will definitely need a structural engineer because you have to make sure the foundation and footings and properly carry the load, and to size the beam correctly.
I can’t believe you would need a beam as large as mine since your span isn’t as large, it doesn’t have to hold up both a second floor and a large addition, and you don’t have to worry about 40 psi snow loads.
Talk to the steel company, I bet no crane will be necessary.
Yes, I thought the whole crane thing was overkill. Ive got plenty of starving college kids that can carry that steel beam through the house!
Starving college kids will carry whatever you want, wherever you want, especially if you give them money, beer and pizza! 
Damn, I thought I was being brilliant about my driveway-in-front-of-the-one-car-garage suggestion. It was just the wine talking last night. And as you were explaining why that wouldn’t work, I was thinking, “Then just flatten out the top of the steep driveway and use that!” and then you explained why that wouldn’t work. It just seems such a shame to have that terribly steep driveway that no one is ever going to use. Especially because extra land in the Pt. Loma area is so rare, and having it terraced and landscaped would be beautiful. (And costly, I know.)
One other idea, which is probably not a good one: If the one-car garage has extra depth beyond what is needed for a car, can you shorten it and make the driveway the required length? Can the existing laundry be relocated inside the house to free up space in the garage for the car? I realize that shortening the garage would require changes to the front of the house, but I really don’t like that steep driveway that will never, ever be used.
cb, you seem OK with keeping the steep driveway, so after this I promise to never bring up the subject again. :-SS
CB…please tell me again…why are you replacing those doors in the living room? Didn’t they provide a gorgeous view, and lots of light?
Regarding street side one car garage. When I sat with the City Planning Department representative (who are the God you have to pass through to get anything done), she made it clear that providing ‘tandem’ parking was not allowed. She actually brought up a Google street view picture of the house and steep driveway.
So, putting a car in the street level driveway would create a ‘tandem’ parking solution which is not allowed. Also, she looked into the zoning (or whatever) and declared that the 2nd off street parking spot had to be at a 15’ setback from street. Meaning, I cannot park a car between the street and 15’. So, for both those reasons I cannot use the driveway in front of the small garage. I have no idea how they came up with 15’, since the house is built only 12’ back from the street. Setback must have been 12’ when all these homes were built in 1950s. All the houses are very close to the street (for obvious reasons… the lots are so steep).
To create a parking pad at top of driveway that is set back 15’ from street means that I would have to build a holy moly structural retaining wall halfway down that steep driveway. Big money
The buyers have a huge backyard to landscape - good luck on landscaping that hillside!
Zoning law changes every year, what’s allowed before may not acceptable now. That makes renovation difficult at times and additions are more expensive than just cosmetic changes. I have a project that the 48 lots were mapped, subdivided and legally buildable 40 years ago because the then developer did not pull a permit now we cannot build and require a full entitlement.
On both the satellite photo and street view, the house right next door has a car parked in the driveway (different cars), sticking part of the way into the street. I see some other cars in the neighborhood parked there, too, so obviously no one cares whether it is allowed or not.
There seem to be plenty of cars parked on the street, so unless the buyers have more than two cars, no one will ever park down that driveway anyway. Or, since the top part of it seems relatively flat, they will just park at the top of it right next to the street. There’s no sidewalk on that side of the street, so who cares if they are right up to the edge of the street.
Plus, if you did terrace the driveway, there would be no way to get heavy equipment into the back yard if the buyer ever wanted to do some serious landscaping back there.
Yes, believe me… no one is going to park a car down there unless they had some type of 3rd vehicle or ‘toys’ that needed a permanent parking space. One car is going into small garage with easy access right into the kitchen and the other car is going to be parked at curb right at the front door. As far as I can tell, hardly anyone on the street even parks a car in their one car garage. Pretty sure all those one car garages are full of storage.
And, several neighbors just park their cars in the short driveway and stick out onto the street a little bit. They cannot get a ticket for blocking the sidewalk, because there is no sidewalk. Not sure any parking police even come down this street. Believe it or not, over at Guizot Hoarder House project my poor carpenter got a parking ticket one day when he parked his van on the street with about 4 feet blocking our own driveway and our own little garage. He was loading something into the van from the garage and went upstairs for about 20 minutes. It was very aggravating.
It’s even worse on other side of the street. All of those homes have the configuration of a little one car garage down at the street and then steep stairs to get up to the house (same as Guizot). Values drop significantly across the street because of that issue, although they have lovely views.
I want to replace the set of patio sliding doors in the living room with one long expanse of accordion glass doors. That would allow the entire wall to be opened up to the view. I have researched a little bit this morning and the accordion opening doors are a lot less expensive than ‘vanishing’ doors. I don’t have enough wall space on either side of the opening to push sliders into a ‘pocket’. If I built a pocket on both sides, or one side, it will actually block a portion of the view.
So, instead of hiding vanishing glass doors into a pocket, I have decided that accordion doors will be the cost effective solution. I am going to configure them to open out to the exterior deck, rather than the accordion intruding into the living room. The goal is to remove the 20" post in middle and open up the views even more.
Meanwhile, I am questioning the whole ‘steel beam’ issue. A standard garage door is about 16’ wide opening. A regular header goes into that opening, even when the garage door is on a wall holding up a 2nd story (which our garage door downstairs is holding up a 2nd story). So, if I have to… I might reduce the opening to 16’ if it makes a difference in the structural reinforcement cost.
Are the accordion doors that three pane soundproof type that the new sliders are?
I personally like sliders because they take up NO room space when they are open.
Is there a fence on the side of the house with the steep sidewalk? If so, would you consider erecting a fence with a door insert (to allow for passage to the back) across the driveway connecting to this fence. That way, there is a boundary for a 2nd parked car and it would hide the rest of the steep sidewalk from view. Looking at the floorplan sketch, perhaps the fence can start at approx the wall between the two front bedrooms and extend across the driveway, if you understand what I’m saying. You can paint the fence the same color as the house and extend the horizontal line of the house.
The accordion doors will probably only be dual pane - I doubt that I can get them in nuclear soundproofing.
In this neighborhood, the whole ‘vanishing wall’ concept is very popular. The sliders kind of smack of 1970s to the buying public. Even if someone doesn’t ever even open the dang vanishing wall, the listing photos will bring a lot of potential buyers.
We work all day with the patio sliders open. If you are standing outside there are a couple of planes a day that drown out the conversation and it is very noticeable. When we are inside, with patio sliders open or closed, the plane noise is not really noticeable.
So, I will ask the question to the window guy on how much soundproofing difference there is between the patio sliders I have (I have make and model) and accordion doors. It looks like I have Old Castle (never heard of that manufacturer) ‘laminate’ patio sliders. I think they are only dual pane, but have the benefit of the ‘laminate’.
In my case the structural engineer calculated I would have needed 4 18" glue-lam wood beams. It was cheaper (and easier) to go with steel.
You can probably get away with a wooden header, but only your structural engineer can tell you for sure though.
Thanks, cb.
It seems to me a 16-foot opening in the basement is plenty wide for an opening.
@veryhappy I think CB was talking about the reducing the area where the current sliders are by a few inches if need to save money on the header beam when she replaces them with according folding doors not the opening in the basement. Or she talking about putting those folding glass door on both levels?
The existing 8’ long patio sliders (two of them) that are currently upstairs in the living room - out to the deck, were pretty expensive sound proof sliding doors. I would like to be able to pull them out and use them in the old garage door opening downstairs in the converted area. Today we have to figure out whether they are going to fit properly in that opening. The reason they might not fit is that I need to put a good post, with proper drywall, in between the two sliders (even though there is a full header across the top of the garage door open area).
Before I make any decisions about upstairs living room opening to the deck, and finalize the plans going to the City, I have to figure out…
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Will the existing expensive soundproof sliders fit into opening downstairs without having to widen garage door opening - which could cause structural issues
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What is the general lowest cost I can find for full vanishing glass door configuration that fits the current 17’ opening upstairs in living room
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What are structural changes required for a header in the living room opening if I remove the 20" that is currently between the two patio sliding doors
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What framing and header changes do I need to make if I want to reduce the full span opening to say 16’ in order to save a substantial cost on the glass door configuration or header configuration