Ken wrote:
RicodJour wrote:
The project I'm working on now was just made much more interesting by
the sins of some hack who decided to widen the old window's 69" rough
opening width for a new 72" triple casement by cutting the jack and
king studs off flush with the bottom of the header. The short stub
remnant of the king stud was left in place and a stud was nailed onto
the side of that.

In other words, the header is supported by one stud nailed to a piece
of blocking (ex-king stud) that's nailed to the end of the header. Not
surprisingly, this did not work very well and the sagging has caused
the casements to bind. The one end has dropped about 1/2". Luckily he
did this surgery on two window openings so I get to practice on one and
perfect my technique!

My question: has anyone else encountered a similar header-stretching
exercise, and if so, how did you handle it?

R

Can you get away with a 72" RO?

If so, then I'm not sure why the hack cut out the king studs in
addition to the jack studs. If just the jack studs were removed you
could put in metal hangers to attach the header to the king studs, and
everything would have been fine and you would have a 72" RO. If this
would work, you could reinstall the bottom half of the cut off king
studs, then use metal hangers. Would probably require sistering a stud
to the side of the newly reformed king studs, which would require
tearing out drywall above the header in the vicinity of the upper half
of the king studs. But that's less drywall patching than if you take
out the whole header.

It is a thought to shift the opening over a stud, cutting the unhacked
side jack stud, and use header hangers on both sides. I was
concentrating on supporting the one side, but your way would be easier
in a lot of ways. I'd have to do a little patching of the sheathing
and drywall on the one side, but anyway you look at it I'll have to do
patching.

The killer is that the upstairs bedroom was just painted a of couple
months ago with Ralph Lauren designer faux-type paint. There's no way
I can patch and match that. I guess either way we'll have to paint the
entire wall.

Thanks for the idea, Ken.

R