A Brace of Bracing

About two and a half years ago we promoted Simpson Strong-tie's Wall Bracing Calculator.  A new contender has entered the ring, APA (the plywood people).  We played around with their new calculator and found it to be a little different than Simpson's.  For one, the walls are adjustable more on the fly.  With Simpson, you need to use their Java back button and re-enter inputs.  With APA you can see changes as you go.  The biggest difference is that you can enter each braced wall section and opening so that APA can calculate not only the total wall bracing needed, but each panel as qualifying or not.  Pretty slick.

To play around with it, go here.  You will need an account to access their website but it's totally worth it.

And make sure you save your work (as an XML file, very cool) before exporting to a pdf.  The pdf feature is temporarily broken.  *edit* PDF function fixed.  But the xml feature tells me that I could edit the hard data in a text editor, similar to a Google Earth kml file.  Take that, Simpson!

Advanced Framing Techniques in Video

The APA (Y'know, the plywood people) recently unveiled a new video outlining advanced framing and how easy it is to achieve in your building.  If you're still building at 16" o.c. with redundant studs at corners, windows, and T-walls, see this video.  These techniques actually ask you to do LESS in your building while achieving cheaper costs, a more comfortable home, environmental friendliness.  If you still balk then I won't stop you from building substandard home.  But for the future of your income, please at least consider staging these techniques into your repertoire of framing practices.

By way of reminder, it's not the number of studs that keep your house from blowing down or siding from warping, it's the use of plywood gapped per manufacturer's specs that achieves strength and durability.

Brace Yourself

Confused by the new bracing code?  The 2011 IRC included some fabulous new updates to the bracing code.  Some of it is more restrictive and more work but other things such as 45° walls are now allowed.  If you have need of a calculator, thank Simpson Strongtie.  They recently added a tool on their website which calculates the percentage of braced wall needed.  Check it out at http://www.strongtie.com/products/strongwall/wallbracing/intro.asp.

This is our new favorite tool!  Istockhouseplans attempts to design homes that do not need engineering for bracing.  While the new code makes that trickier to design homes for the entire country, it does give us an idea of what might be more common.  If all that needs to be done is reduce two 3/0 windows down to 2/6, perfect!