Seeking advice for large Sliding Glass Door


ACADuser
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The customer for this house is asking for a 28' wide 8' tall sliding glass door on the 3rd floor. The 2nd & 3rd floor are frame construction. While the first floor is breakaway CMU with concrete beams. The foundation is a cc beam system supported by concrete piles. This is because the house is water front property in Florida and in a Floodway Zone.

 

My concern is movement over time & the ability to re-level the door. Does anyone know of a system that will allow frame adjustments years down the road?

 

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I would assume that all of these types of doors allow for a reasonable amount of adjustment over time, especially considering that many openings wouldn't be level, plumb, square or true to begin with. The installation manual for one type is below, check out pages 48 and on to see the adjustment methods.

https://panoramicdoors.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Panoramic-Door-Manual-Door-Install-Nov2018.pdf

 

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4 minutes ago, Alaskan_Son said:

I'm not familiar with sliding glass doors that are that large, but I do have a thought.  What about using a steel moment frame type opening for that portion of the structure?

I'd certainly want an engineer designed structural frame that would 'house' the opening and would remain square even if it were to shift beyond level or plumb.

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I wanted a steel moment frame too but the gc says he can not get a crane large enough down the street to fly it to the back of the house on the third floor. We are in exposure D and 150 mph which is about 170 mph equivalent. 

Thanks for the replies. 

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Typically the doors are supported on the bottom track and the top track is just to contain them horizontally.  You will obviously need a fairly good sized header beam and it will need to be sized for deflection so the clearances above the track are maintained.  The header will also need to be restrained laterally to withstand the wind loads.

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Thank Rob for the link.

I suppose the casing can be removed to re-shim if any movement took place.

Thanks Joe, we have 6 feet of 6" wall on each end to create sheer panels and the roof trusses run parallel to the wall so they can help with the racking forces. The beam is almost self-weight only. The perpendicular forces (wind) will need to transfer to the roofing diaphragm. But I'll leave that to the engineer to sort out.

 

Shear Wall.JPG

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19 hours ago, ACADuser said:

The perpendicular forces (wind) will need to transfer to the roofing diaphragm. But I'll leave that to the engineer to sort out.

 

I was referring to the header needing to resist deflection caused by wind against the sliding door.  Essentially it needs to be designed as a beam working in both directions even though the trusses will support almost all of the vertical load.

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  • 4 months later...

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