Engineering Excellence: Crafting Homes that Last
By wisdom a house is built, and through understanding it is established; through knowledge its rooms are filled with rare and beautiful treasures.
Before we employ a shovel or hammer, we plan, taming an inherently complex building process while carefully considering what a home must endure. Our engineers, for example, ensure each home can withstand the forces of nature and everyday use—and comply with local building codes—by providing meticulously prepared design documents to guide our construction teams.
By better understanding these design documents, you may gain a deeper respect for the detail that goes into these designs and the resulting product. In this article we dissect the top five engineering design documents drawn up for any home.
Engineering Design Documents
Site Plan
The site plan dictates the optimal location for a home on a lot. We meet the engineer on-site to consider all aspects of the site, including trees, topography, easements, and required setbacks, or the minimum distance required between roads or landforms and the home. Once we’ve pinpointed the home’s ideal location, we map out the slope, the finished floor elevation and grading of the site, ensuring proper drainage away from the foundation. Our site plan undergoes several iterations before being finalized as it serves as the basis for all construction stages, frequently referenced and faithfully followed, allowing us to execute with absolute precision.
Foundation Design
The foundation, responsible for supporting the load of the structure, sets the standard of quality for the rest of the home. A well-engineered foundation design will guarantee that the foundation is sound and resistant to settling, cracking, and other types of damage that can compromise the home’s structural integrity.
Wall Bracing Design
Though not as extreme as the Gulf Coast, the Texas Hill Country faces our fair share of severe weather. Wall bracing, critical in wood-framed homes, helps stabilize the walls by distributing the weight of the building materials, resisting lateral winds and preventing collapse in even the most storm-prone areas. These designs specifically instruct where to place wall bracing to effectively handle horizontal forces.
Brick Lintel Design
Because windows and doors are not structurally supportive, brick lintels are used to support the brick and stone masonry above them. A brick lintel design outlines the size of lintels necessary to support the weight of masonry based on how high above the opening the masonry will rise. Due to their higher load capacity, when an architectural design calls for brick and stone masonry above an opening, Joseph Creek uses steel lintels.
Structural Framing Design
The structural framing design serves as the blueprint for the home's walls, wood framed floors and the roof. It indicates the size and placement of beams, columns, and other structural elements, and accounts for the weight of the building materials to ensure your home can sustain the load. If you know any particularly heavy pieces of furniture, such as a pool table, will be placed in the home, let us know and we can factor in the weight as well.
Conclusion
Essential to crafting a durable home built to the highest standards, these engineering design documents are often the unsung heroes of home-building. Understanding their value can give a homeowner confidence and appreciation of the building process, and knowledge that it will result in a safe and comfortable place to live for many years to come.
