Kit Home Structural Engineering and Design

What this episode covers

Show Notes: More in depth design details and their benefits. What is structural engineering and design?  Why do I need it.  WUI, Wildland Urban Interface and how it affects my home and permitting.  Different structural design concepts and Mechanical Design.  Plumbing, Electrical and HVAC design. Transcript: Interviewer: Hello and welcome to the Panelized Prefab Kit Home Building Show. With me 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, Mr. Steve Tuma. Steve, how are things going over there at Landmark? Steve Landmark: Yeah, it’s a busy day. We’re having some fun and a lot of people are building interesting homes, nice families building unique homes, fun homes in different parts of the country. Interviewer: Yeah. Your job of just helping people design their – that has got to be a lot of fun just helping people get into a brand new house. Steve Landmark: Well, it is. It’s interesting and even after – since 1993, every single project is interesting because it’s not just a house that someone is going to live in. It’s their home and it affects the way they live. It affects the relaxation, their good days or bad days, the hobbies they have and their attitude about like their savings, their retirement. It’s a big move but you know, we try to simplify it so people can get a house that they enjoy at a price that makes sense for them and works on the land and our plans make it easy for them to get permits. So it’s a lot of fun because you’re transforming people’s lives by getting it done properly. Interviewer: That’s pretty cool. I thought today we would talk just about general design and some of the things – I’ve read through some of the questions that potential customers have sent to you guys and I thought some of them might be interesting to cover. Not so much specific questions but just general overall inquiries that people make. Let’s talk about structural design and design details. Can we get into that a little bit? Yes. A lot of people think you just get some wood together or have someone give you some rough idea about oh, this beam works here and this post works there and this stud works there. But there’s actually a little bit more of a science behind it to make sure that the home is structurally sound. There are more and more areas that are requesting engineer-stamped plans just for snow load situations, high winds, hurricanes, flood situations, earthquakes and whatever it may be. What has happened previously, if people have put houses together, maybe they failed or haven’t been as good as possible, so they request structural engineering and a lot of people kind of think, “Well, that’s just a guy stamping something.” I could just go buy a set of plans and have someone stamp it. Well, that’s not really structural engineering. Structural engineering is actually doing calculations and justifying why the components of the home are strong enough, making sure that the truss is designed as properly, making sure the foundation is designed as properly. So some areas of the country, they don’t require it in simpler homes. But if you get into something more complex where the site conditions or the natural conditions like wind speeds or snow loads or earthquakes are bigger, the building departments will want it, generally all along the West Coast, most of Colorado. You know, anywhere along the East Coast now with the hurricanes will require and then we’ve read in spots in other parts of the country where the building departments require it. Sometimes because they just want to know that it’s done right and kind of pass the buck to the structural engineer involved. So that’s what we like to do is make sure that the structure is right.