Brace / Shear Wall Location

[MCORTEZ]

Does anyone have a general rule of where to place hold downs for shear walls? All walls are to be sheathed, and I I would normally place them where wall openings occure, i.e., window and door locations, but sometimes I feel I may be overdoing it. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

 

[phamENG]

Is that a house? If so, why do shear walls at all? Looks like a prime candidate for prescriptive braced walls. Then you probably won't need any hold downs.

But if you insist on engineered shear walls (or location or other circumstance requires it), then your hold downs go at the ends of your shear walls. If you design them as segmented, then you would need them on either side of windows that occur in the shear walls, but if perforated or FTAO then you'd only need them at the ends.

 

[MCORTEZ]

PHAMENG,
this is a 495 sq. ft. Accessory Structure. Eventually it will be an ADU. Great feedback!

 

[phamENG]

Glad it helped. By the way, if you're practicing in the US those aren't "general rules". For shear walls, it's codified in the Special Design Provisions for Wind and Seismic, published by the American Wood Council and referenced in its entirety by the 2018 IBC in 2305.1. The relevant spot in the SDPWS is 4.3.6-Construction Requirements, .2-Uplift Anchorage at Shear Wall Ends, and .3-Uplift Anchorage for Perforated Shear Walls.

Your profile says your accessing eng-tips from California...so if you haven't been placing them in accordance with the code...how have you been designing your shear walls?