Different Structural Design Details By Location
\nShow Notes:
\nDifferent structural design details by location of building project. Also review of the different structural design types required to obtain permits in different jurisdictions.
\nTranscript:
\nInterviewer: Hey everybody. Welcome back to the Panelized Prefab Kit Home Building Show. With me, as always, is the President and Founder of Landmark Home and Land Company, a company which has been helping people build their new homes where they want exactly as they want across the nation and worldwide since 1993 and that gentleman is Steve Tuma. How\u2019s it going today buddy?
\nSteve Landmark: It\u2019s an excellent day.
\nInterviewer: Good.
\nSteve Landmark: Good day, a lot of customers calling with interesting projects in different parts of the country with different building department requirements. It\u2019s interesting.
\nInterviewer: Well, that\u2019s good because I\u2019ve got more interesting questions for you, so hope you\u2019re ready to feel the feels.
\nSteve Landmark: I probably have some interesting answers.
\nInterviewer: Let\u2019s hope. I want to talk today a little bit about plans again, about getting your plans engineered. And I\u2019d like to go over a couple things again that we\u2019ve touched about a little bit in the past. One of those is structural engineering. Can you just give us your basic expertise on what exactly structural engineering is?
\nSteve Landmark: In a simplified version, it\u2019s just to make sure that the structural design of your home can withstand the happenings on your site. So let\u2019s just say your building in Colorado, there\u2019s a lot of snow in areas. Some part of Colorado is more desert but a lot of it is snow. So you can end up with big snow accumulation overnight, because of the mountains you can also end up with high winds. Also, the way that mountains are, you can end up with expansive soils.
\nSo then if you took that same house and said \u201cHey, let\u2019s build that I California.\u201d You\u2019re going to be in an earthquake situation. If you said, \u201cHey, now I want to move to Key West, Florida.\u201d Suddenly, you\u2019re in a hurricane situation. So the structural engineering develops the structure, the thing that holds the house up to be able to withstand those conditions. And sometimes those conditions like I say are earthquake or wind or snow loads or expansive soils. And that\u2019s what we\u2019re looking at.
\nSo basically, to simplify it, it\u2019s just to make sure the structure is strong enough to withstand the conditions that it\u2019s going to be built within.
\nInterviewer: And we\u2019ve talked a lot about working with building departments in specific areas, wherever a customer happens to be building a house, he\u2019s going to have to deal with the building department in that area. And the request that they come up with, do they request different structural information a lot?
\nSteve Landmark: Yes, it can vary considerably because building departments are different, it\u2019s a national code. But the enforcement of that code is different in different areas. My opinion is basically because some areas, the building departments are more sophisticated and others, they are a little less sophisticated.
\nSo that means that some areas like I mentioned before were \u2013 they don\u2019t even ask for building permits. Other places, they want simplified structural engineering like header and beam calculations just to make sure that the beams are holding up your house or the headers that are spanning your window and door openings are strong enough to support it.
\nThat\u2019s more on the basic side. Others will go through and want just foundation design because of the ground conditions. That happens a lot in Colorado and Texas and a few other places. And then other places want the full design. That\u2019s the foundation and the complete wood structure, shear walls, different connections, beam sizes and different situations to make sure that the house is strong enough.
\nSo it can be a pretty detailed process.