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All, I had a discussion with a colleague about designing a raised ground level deck with a covered roof for 1-story single-family dwelling with a raised floor. The project has a ground sloping down away from the dwelling unit to about 3 to 4 feet from the deck to the ground at the edge of the...

Hi fellow engineers, I have a project to legalize unpermitted work and questions I'd like to bounce with others. Owners have unpermitted wooden planters that doubles as retaining walls. There are two planters (see attached) with 36 inches height. Below are my concerns: 1. Due to decay, I don't...

Hi, I designed a new 3.5"x11.25" ceiling beam in an existing house spanning almost 20 feet and the beam supports roughly 8 feet of ceiling tributary loads (10 psf of dead and live loads). Initially, we were going to replace the existing ceiling beam with a new one and it would've been exposed...

A fellow engineer told me that you could design wood shear walls using the total shear design method. Every shear walls designed with equal unit shears based on the story shear. I always thought that wood shear walls need to be designed with a tributary method based on the flexible diaphragm...

I have a plan check correction about using the wood shear walls and pre-approved panels such as strong walls on the same line of resistance. The plan checker believes that "the combinations should not be used as the stiffness between them is unknown and questionable." I believe the question to...

I have a project where hillside ordinance is applied. One side of the building is fully day-lighted (T.O. soil and T.O.S. at the same elevation) and the other side is retaining soil up to 8'-0" height. I cannot determine if the I have to assume the base level diaphragm at the roof level (at...

Hello everyone, The section 21.9.2.2 of ACI 318 dictates "At least two curtains of reinforcement shall be used in a wall if a [factored shear demand] exceeds 2Acv(lamda)sqrt(f'c)." This obviously applies to concrete shear wall designs. Is there a similar limitation to masonry shear wall...