Anybody have any structural engineering experience?

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jamesA

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Most single story wood frame commercial buildings I've been in have ceiling joists and beams that are 16" center apart running across the ceiling that have the drywall attached to them. Just out of curiosity, is this simply a 'standard' or is it how it's legally supposed to be done?

This morning I was in an attic that they were at least 48" across with perpendicular 2x4s nailed below them with the drywall for the ceiling nailed to that. It made walking through this attic rather difficult.
 
So the truss spans every 48 and perpendicular to those you have 2x4's every 16?

This is all your local/state zoning. Might be the bare minimum.


Typically from my experience in WA, trusses are laid out every 24" and walls 16".
 
So the truss spans every 48 and perpendicular to those you have 2x4's every 16?

This is all your local/state zoning. Might be the bare minimum.

Yep. It makes it hard to walk on those 2x4s because they're nailed upward into the trusses.

Typically from my experience in WA, trusses are laid out every 24" and walls 16".

So trusses can be 24"? I think they just got away with bare minimum in this building. I've never seen one in Ft Wayne that did this.
 
Span and Pitch create the layout. I normally saw 24" and in some area's like 16" where it needed heavy duty. I'm not sure the standard about this across the country just my area.

Typically when doing stick frame roofs and coming up with the engineering(assuming there isn't a layout plan-can happen) we used something like this from a local company.
 
the older the building the more weird shit you are likely to encounter
i've seen some that had studs varying between 12 and 26 inches on center, and no rhyme or reason to it at all.
 
Builders went to 16" because they were too cheap to build at 12". It is a standard.

Truss or wall?

The 100 year old house I live in is 16" OC for wall framing and 24" OC for the roof/truss.
 
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