To be honest I’ve never actually had to deal with a basement door opening in any of my various projects (design or structural) so now I have a bunch of questions.
Notice that typical prehung door frame is not deep enough to span two 2x4’s and a 1/2" air gap:
Yes, like that, except with such an inswinging door, the frame is flush to the inside to let the door open fully, and then a “jamb extension,” as it were, added as needed to the outside edge of the frame. An outswinging door would be another story.
So something along these lines for an inswinging door (however I have shown the door frame and jamb extension as a single solid for simplicity).
Also note that I have shown the brickmould as 2.25" however 2" is a more common width so there would probably be a 1/4" gap between the brickmould and concrete (caulking).
In simple form, yes. Quite probably, you would just buy the door with a stock frame depth and field apply extension strips hard to the PT 2x creating a step in the profile at that butt joint, and a caulk joint to the concrete makes sense too.
That’s my understanding. Others might have a different opinion. Conceivably, the tolerances of concrete might want even the PT door bucks to be shimmed, so you might make it 42" instead of 41."
On the other hand, I just looked at what I did here in my house, and I put a 36" door in a nominal CMU opening of 40" (which with an added joint should be 40 3/8"). The rough carpentry is all covered with trim, so I can’t check what the PT parts were. I think maybe they were PT 5/4. When working with CMU, you kind of have certain discrete choices for MO.
You never know what you are getting into until you really get into it with this sort of thing. I assumed that I could simply copy my window and door modules from the Wall plugin but after further testing there are some subtle differences between a regular framed wall and a foundation stemwall. Hence some adjustments too the code are necessary and this is taking me a few more days than anticipated.
As I am wrapping up the details on the new window and door module of the foundation plugin it occurred to me that it might also be useful to have a basement entrance option:
A whole bunch more parameters with this option (ie. number of steps, landing width and length etc…) but it would actually be quite easy to code.
I would probably have three directional options (Left, Right and Center).
The problem with this option would be much the same as every other option, I need to make it as flexible as possible for it to be useful but not overly complex (too many parameters).
I’m also looking for some plans for this type of entrance to better educate me on what is common practice.
This is a fairly substantial upgrade to the foundation plugin. Note that windows and doors can only be installed into “polyline” stemwalls, this new feature does not work with the legacy stemwall tool.
Note: I did not enable the radius for the nosing on the treads but I think this additional feature or lack thereof is not a major issue since it is purely cosmetic in my opinion. If there is enough additional demand for it I will look into it further.
I also have not added any option for rebar into this concrete sub-assembly. Again, I will address that further if there is additional interest or requests for it.
Q: Can you do curved stemwalls?
A: Multi-segment stemwalls are possible with the polyline stemwall tool however there is no function for a true curved stemwall. With enough segments one can approximate a curved wall as shown below:
Due to our family’s housing situation (and moving) I have had to put this latest development on hold but I will be working on it today and throughout the rest of the week as best I can.
