Pilaster Design in Residential Stemwall 2

[medeek]

Has anyone ever done a pilaster at the end of a stemwall in a residential design? I have a large point load at the end of a 8" x 48" high stemwall and I am thinking this is the route to go. Are there any prescriptive resources or design guides/spreadsheets?

A confused student is a good student.
Nathaniel P. Wilkerson, PE

http://www.medeek.com

 

[jayrod12]

I like that detail, might even consider making the hairpins 36" long each leg so you are sure you're getting embedment depth past your inboard pair of verticals.

But that's just a "feel" comment and they're likely ok as you've shown.

 

[Ingenuity]

Hey medeek, sorry, hijacking your thread...but I have been meaning to compliment you on your CAD drafting, and most especially your color shading on wood members. Do you use AutoCAD to produce your drawings, and if so, do you use "hatch" or some other command to get the color rendering to wood members?

 

[medeek]

Thank-you. I sometimes like to shade the wood since if it often confusing with some of these details as to what is empty space or framing. I use AutoCAD with a solid hatch.

I've got a few drawings posted here that you can open up and look at the shading and the colors I am using:

http://design.medeek.com/cad/cadlibrary.html

The only downside is the extra time and effort to apply hatching to the framed areas and then to make sure they are behind all of the other line and text objects.

I also like to use a bit of color in my drawings since I think it helps differentiate things like structural notes, dimensions and physical objects.

A confused student is a good student.
Nathaniel P. Wilkerson, PE

http://www.medeek.com

 

[Ingenuity]

Thanks for the link to your CAD library.

Your drawings have a very clean and concise look. Nice use of color without making it an 'architectural rendering'. Well done.

 

[medeek]

I have played with the colors a bit over the last year and the goal is to use the effect minimally. If the wood shading is too dark it becomes distracting and overlaying dimensions are also harder to discern. Just enough color to indicate the wood framing.

For straps I've starting using a light gray shading with a blue outline, to help differentiate from wood or concrete objects. However, I'm not sure if I'm sold on the dark blue outline yet.

I'll admit I was influenced by different framing textbooks (Dewalt etc...) in my methods.

I'm not sure why I started using dark green as my dimension color but it somehow stuck and I am a creature of habit I guess.

For structural floor plans I use a light shade of gray for the walls, dark enough so that the walls pop out at you but light enough so the location of the holdown anchor bolts is clearly visible.

I've created a vast number of blocks so inserting windows, doors, posts etc... is fairly simple.

For structural notes and tables I like to use a dark blue to set them apart from my dimensions. I borrowed that idea from one of my mentors.

For shearwalls I use a deep red with a dashed heavy line weight.

I use the flux architect font by Clayton Cowan, mostly because it was free at the time I was looking for a suitable font, however it is missing a few important characters like the degree symbol but AutoCAD deals with this just fine.

The drawings really pop when you print them out full size at 24 x 36 (Arch D):

http://design.medeek.com/images/misc/WARD_RESIDENCE_STRUCTURAL1.jpg

A confused student is a good student.
Nathaniel P. Wilkerson, PE

http://www.medeek.com

 

[medeek]

Meant to post as an image.

A confused student is a good student.
Nathaniel P. Wilkerson, PE

http://www.medeek.com

 

[medeek]

Yup, I've been fully derailed.

My philosophy on drafting is that with only four key variables some amazing drawings can be created. Those four elements are:

1.) Lineweight
2.) Line Type
3.) Color/Grayscale
4.) Hatch Type


A confused student is a good student.
Nathaniel P. Wilkerson, PE

http://www.medeek.com

 

[jayrod12]

I've never used actual colour on drawings. No one wants to pay the added charge of colour copies. And I guess I'm still stuck in the old ways of hand drafting where all you had was different shades of Grey.

Your stuff looks awesome but I wonder what it looks like once the contractor has printed it in black and white and then made a bunch of copies on the xerox.

 

[medeek]

This is another reason I keep my solid hatches to a lighter shade, once they go to grayscale if they are too dark they will obscure arrows and other features.

The use of dark colors for text also is important so that the contrast is maintained once they go to grayscale.



A confused student is a good student.
Nathaniel P. Wilkerson, PE

http://www.medeek.com

 

[Ingenuity]

I've never used actual colour on drawings. No one wants to pay the added charge of colour copies. And I guess I'm still stuck in the old ways of hand drafting where all you had was different shades of Grey.

Your stuff looks awesome but I wonder what it looks like once the contractor has printed it in black and white and then made a bunch of copies on the xerox.

Nor have I added color, but with PDF files and inexpensive 11x17 color printers even the small residential contractor has cheap access to color printing.

11x17 printing or the use of an iPad are my personal choices on site.

 

[MacGruber22]

I have used shading like you show for a number of years now. It works very well when done correctly. Have gotten very good comments about clarity from other engineers and contractors/framers.

"It is imperative Cunth doesn't get his hands on those codes."

 

[PBW2]

Medeek,

Do you have a copy of your Pilaster spreadsheet that you would be willing to share? I've really enjoyed your posts and the responding threads. I am getting into the residential market; just trying to figure out how to make money doing it.

Thanks,
PBW2

 

[medeek]

Technically the spreadsheet shown above is for a short concrete column (axial loads only, no moments).

I'm not going to say it is a polished product since I've only used it once and it has not undergone multiple revs like some of my other spreadsheets, this is my first draft.

You can download a copy of it here:

http://design.medeek.com/resources/column/

There are more complete spreadsheet/calculators out there that do deal with axial + moment loading if that does become a design issue.

With regards to making money at residential I'm feeling the pain. I've recently updated my pricing to $0.40 per sqft for residential structural work, lets see where that gets me...

A confused student is a good student.
Nathaniel P. Wilkerson, PE

http://www.medeek.com