groutedreinforced block wall penetration

huangyhg

grouted/reinforced block wall penetration
hello,
i work for a gc and am not looking for a professional statement of opinion (just trying to learn and get professional's opinions).
please look at the photos which may explain better.
well, the wall was probably designed for a number of forces...
1.  component lateral wind perpendicular to the wall where the wall spans vertically and/or horizontally.
2.  component lateral seismic - similar to 1. above.
3.  longitudinal shearwall perhaps?  wind or seismic forces in the plane of the wall.
4.  axial loads from roof or floors above.
in any of the above cases, the loss of a 5 ft. wide section certainly has diminished the wall capacity.  has this been checked by the engineer of record?  
also curious is the fact that the exposed rebar that i see was located offset from the center of the block - towards the inside face.  this is strange.  most times you set the rebar in the center, or have rebar in both sides....but rarely one side only.
has the eor seen this?
shouldn't there be a bond beam above the opening? if it was an after thought, i doubt there was a bond beam(s) and the necessary vertical grout support constructed with the appropriate rebar during the original construction. also, i would expect there to be a rather significant amount of rebar both horizontal and vertical (and appropriately placed within the cells).
msucog,
from the photos it is a fully grouted wall with both horizontal and vertical bars.  the opening was sawn, and very neatly at that.  only the design engineer can make the determination if the wall has been unduly compromised.  like jae, i wonder at the position  of the bars within the wall.
the blocks above the opening appear to be normal blocks (since the opening was cut in to the existing wall), not u-shaped or lintels so i wonder how/where the horizontal bars are located above the opening. it seems to me that the course or two above the opening should've been removed and replaced with a more appropriate bond beam with horizontal reinforcing extending to outside the width of the opening. that is my main point.
i see no where that says the wall is fully grouted. and i also see no specifics on where the horizontal and vertical bars are located. i try not assume a wall is fully reinforced horizontally and vertically or fully grouted based on what is visible at one opening.
i assumed the bars are on the inside because the wall holds back soil and spans top to bottom.
msucog,
just based on what i think i see, but looks to me like there is a horizontal bar in each course.  you don't need a u-shaped block in order to build in horizontal bars.  and again based only on what i see, looks like the wall is fully grouted.  all the cores which are in the photos are grouted.  where i come from, we grout them all as a matter of course, although i know in some areas they waste time by trying to just grout the ones with bars.
tomfh,
think you are right, looks like the wall is designed as a basement wall, with the external grade about 8 courses above the internal.  so there would be a concern as to whether the wall at the jambs can pick up the extra bending.
folks, i don't think this is a basement wall at all (rchrd can verify this) because you have a very decorative veneer block on the exterior side with rebar on the interior side.  i don't see this as being set up to receive dirt.  why use the special color/texture block with a nice color band and then bury it?
jae,
i trust the decorative veneer would stop just below the external slab.  if you look at the photos taken inside, the floor is quite a few courses, maybe 8, further below the sill than the slab outside.  you would have to think that the cavity is grouted below the outside slab.  the veneer that we can see from the photos was built with the opening, with only the reinforced backup hole sawn out.  a bit of a worry with the veneer is that there do not appear to be any weepholes or any sign of flashing.
hokie66, how would you install horizontal bar through normal block? by saw cutting and knocking out the cavity? would you normally do that if the opening wasn't going to be there when you did the construction? and typically when i see contractors cut in normal block for horizontal reinforcement in a bond beam, they rarely provide the appropriate dimensions...they will usually put just enough room to get the rebar in. as far as the horizontal bars i can see at the edge of the opening, it appears to me to only be 1-#4 or #5 which seems a little "thin on reinforcement" for 12" cmu or bond beam. instead of guessing, rchrd, please explain the horizontal/vertical reinforcement and spacing you have in the two courses above the opening and to each side of the opening.
either way, it does appear that the block only has two courses before it reaches the above deck/beam, so there should be a bond beam there anyway since it's an exterior wall. i would expect the opening to be ok if there is only two courses with one of the courses being a bond beam. i'm not so sure the opening would satisfy code if there is not a bond beam immediately above the opening (there again, i don't have x-ray vision to see what's not visible in the picture).
i guess one important question would be to ask whether there were special inspections performed during the initial wall construction. this might help firm up whether the masonry, grout spaces and reinforcement satified code requirements more appropriately than from what i see out of many masonry contractors that simply throw the wall up however they feel that day.
just to clarify, my comments and questions in this thread are geared more toward satisfying code requirements rather than evaluating the structural integrity of the scenario put forth.