hello all,
my wife and i just closed on 3 acres of land and are planning on building a slab house here in kershaw sc .i have alot of experience in building everything from concrett, plumbing, basic framing, electrical and much more. ive read plans on job sites BUT ive never drawn my own plans till now
only thing im having trouble with is some structual questions mainly for my roof design and i need to find our more about load bearing walls, beams and collumns.
if i am able to load up my plans can anyone here give me some pointers?
Replies
I suspect that several folks here will tell you that you need to work with an engineer.
I would be surprised that you can submit plans without an architect or engineer stamp.
I drew up my plans for a fairly small addition but I still needed a seal on them. The engineer laid my plan on his copier surrounded by the details that meet our code (some actually provided by the state), shot the picture, stamped it and they passed review.
This is from my county.
They certainly make it easy. That sounds like the plans I submitted in Maryland in the 70s. You could just write "standard practice" on all of the details. Just like your guy, the only engineering was on trusses.
Florida is much harder. They want engineering on everything. There is also a much stricter code with requirements up to 180 MPH wind code (keys) I am in the 160 zone.
I guess they just got tired of houses blowing away in a hurricane.
Keep in mind that if you don't get a engineer or archy to sign off on it then you're on the hook for anything you screw up. Eg, if you don't get the footings deep enough for code you could end up having to dig it all up.
That handout he has says there in no frost line requirememt on the footer. It really looks like the rules are pretty lax there.
Hopefully they catch all of these problems in plan review. I still think I would try to find some mastered plans from a local contractor, just to see the details they are looking for.