Guardian,
I'm not a carpenter, not an engineer, not a roofer, though I have done all those things. I am a decent draftsman and I have designed and built some buildings. I designed and built (with the help of a girlfriend and my brother) a "cabin" on our property in northern Washington. My brother is living there now. The girlfriend and my wife are best friends.
I designed and built my garage and my shop where I am living now and the inspectors all told me that I exceeded every code in the book. I even did the wiring and the roofing. On these two buildings I let the professionals put in the foundations. When we were done I needed to build a staircase into the garage and thinking about it hauling yard tools in and out of the garage would be easier with a ramp. I conferred with my brother and he decided it would be easy with a little lumber and filling it with stone - crushed rock. We wore ourselves out but it looked great. after the first winter it was busting out at the sides and the lumber was failing. OK, I designed a ramp that would last FOREVER or at least until I wore out a couple of wheelchairs.
I laid out the rebar and welded it together, set it in place on 2 inch bricks so the concrete would flow around the bottom of the rebar frame. I placed the forms and staked them down. I then placed two layers of that fancy steel mesh - one under the top of the rebar and one over the top. I back filled around the frame so it would take less concrete to fill the space and the concrete would go from the ground 2 inches under the frame and we could use the forms to take it 2 over the frame. I used more rebar for that 8 foot ramp than the contractor used in BOTH the foundations. I used 1170 pounds of 6000 psi concrete to fill the forms and leveled it to the form making sure it was covering the steel and on the ground. The steel was anchored to the foundation of the garage with anchor bolts I had installed to fasten the stairs to but extended them 36 inches with coupling nuts and 36 inch threaded rods.
In 4 years it still looks like new.
Now I am designing my next house, garage, and workshop. I am on the 3rd redo because I changed my requirements. This home and out buildings all withstand >1g of acceleration in all directions. That will make it easily survive a magnitude 8 earthquake, 160 mph wind and fire of 1800F for 2 hours with no more than cosmetic damage. There are areas that will require an engineer to sign off on because the structure is "unusual" in construction and materials used. The house will be anchored to a foundation of 3400 yards of steel reinforce concrete That will be 22 feet into the ground. Both the interior and exterior walls will have anchors every 32 inches. The exterior walls will use 5/8" high strength hurricane bolts and the interior walls will use 1/2" "L" bolts 16 inches deep. The exterior walls will have connecting rods from the hurricane bolts to the top of the the wall top and king plates. All of the interior walls and ceiling will have 5/8" water contact OSB with 5/8" " water contact" type X wallboard.
The exterior walls will have 3/4" water contact OSB, 5/8" water contact type X wallboard, Hardie board smooth sheathing and Hardie board plank siding with a 6" reveal. The hip roof is like the exterior walls but will have a copper roof instead of the plank siding.
I am currently drawing up the details of framing and finishing of the house. I am trying to have all shear walls and diaphragms one continuous structure all tied back to the foundation. The house is engineered wood frame twice as long as it is deep to keep the frame from twisting. 2x8 exterior walls and 2x6 interior walls. The finished exterior walls are 11" thick and the interior walls are finished at 8". Rock wool insulation in the floors, walls and ceiling. The ceiling will have R-90, the interior walls will have R- 19, while the exterior walls will have R-25 for insulation.
