All Things Beam Designs for Residential Structures

About this event

Struggling to understand structural engineering basics?

Our 30-minute Live Residential Design webinar series is the perfect way for any design professional in the residential construction industry to improve their understanding of structural engineering.

You’ll get to follow along with our Director of Customer Success, Connor Conzelman as he walks through how to design all types of common beams you may encounter in a residential project such as wood deck joists, wood headers, wood rafters, steel girders, and concrete girders. This will ensure that you can confidently complete your next project!

Join Connor Conzelman on Wednesday, April 12th, 2023 from 1 pm to 1.30 pm Eastern Time (ET) to learn more about how to design common beams based on a real-life residential drawing plan and the tips and tricks you can use to speed up your structural design workflow in ClearCalcs!

In this webinar, we will cover:

• Short introduction of the house
• Locating beams in the plan
• Designing common beams in ClearCalcs -- wood deck joist, -- wood headers -- wood rafters -- steel girder -- concrete girder
• Tips and tricks to use to speed up your beam design workflow

Webinar Summary

The webinar titled Live Residential Design: Taos, NM Custom Home Pt. 1 was presented by ClearCalcs' Director of Customer Success, Connor Conzelman. The focus was on designing beams in the real world using ClearCalcs' cloud-based structural calculation software. Examples included wood beam presets and load linking features.

In this segment, Connor discusses the required inputs for designing a deck joist in ClearCalcs, including assumptions for joist length and bearing lengths. He also shows how to determine the actual connection to the top beam using structural drawings and details.

Connor explains how to determine the width of a rim joist and subtract it from the dimensions of the deck beam to find the actual bearing length. He also demonstrates how to use ClearCalcs' Wood Connections calculator to determine the hanger's width for the bottom connection of the joist.

Connor then proceeds to add a new calculation in ClearCalcs for the wood beam of the deck joist, using the Deck Joist preset and inputting the correct loads and member dimensions. He also demonstrates how to swap between different lumber grades and sizes in the software. In the next segment, he will discuss the design of the deck beam at the top of the deck system.

Connor proceeds to design a steel girder in ClearCalcs, which requires inputs such as the length of the beam and the supports. He explains that unlike the Wood Beam calculator, the Steel calculator does not require bearing lengths. Connor also mentions that he will create help content on including wind loads in the calculations.

Connor discusses how to determine the tributary width of a steel girder and input it into ClearCalcs for designing the beam. He also explains how to select the appropriate cross-section for the beam based on the loads and member dimensions, and demonstrates how to filter the available options in the software. Additionally, he mentions that ClearCalcs is now up-to-date with IBC 2021, ACI 318-19, and Florida Building Code 2020.

Connor discusses the Design Code for Load Combinations in ClearCalcs, which includes options such as IBC 2021, IRC, California Building Code, and Florida Building Code. He also answers questions from attendees regarding upcoming webinars, support for Canada's connection details, and concentrated lateral loads from shear wall hold-downs.

Connor offers to run training sessions and answer any questions about ClearCalcs, including the use of Autosize. He also addresses user questions about adjusting the duration factor and setting species defaults in the member selector. Connor encourages users to send their questions and suggestions to help@clearcalcs.com.