Massachusetts Ground Snow Loads

[medeek]

I finally got around to finishing up this map:

http://design.medeek.com/resources/snow ... loads.html

There is nothing special with this map it simply displays what is tabulated in the Mass. Residential Code. However, when the information is displayed in a more intuitive manner it just makes more sense.

What is even more interesting is comparing the map to the national map published by the ASCE (Fig. 7-1 of the ASCE 7-10), which can be viewed here:

http://design.medeek.com/resources/imag ... _COLOR.jpg

It can be seen that the Mass. code is essentially following the ASCE snow load map but for ease of management the snow load isolines are based on township boundaries or jurisdictions.

[Steven Hockstein]

Mr. Wilkerson,

Just curious, are you a Licensed Architect? IN NJ you cannot call yourself an architect without a professional license.

[Tom Raymond]

In NY you just have to marry one. I don't even want to know how many months I wasted dealing with Mrs. Architect and her squad of interns on revitalization projects.

[Steven Hockstein]

In NY you just have to marry one. I don't even want to know how many months I wasted dealing with Mrs. Architect and her squad of interns on revitalization projects.

I had an interesting experience with a NY "Architect"...

The son of one of our clients here in NJ hired a guy from NYC to design a new house for him in the Hamptons. The short version is that after the house was designed the client attempted to get a permit and the construction department told them that they need plans sealed by a licensed architect. When he asked the designer to provide sealed plans he was told by the designer that he never represented himself as licensed architect, and he was just a designer. The client almost got arrested when he assaulted the designer after he had paid him over $50,000 for a set of plans that were useless.

The client eventually hired us to design a different house (the original plans were junk). Also, the client felt that the work to get money back from the designer was not worthwhile because he could make more than that in the time it took to pursue the guy.

[Tom Raymond]

This is a very large firm that gets most of the block grant preservation and revitalization projects here. By the third project she stopped writing scope of work docs, she waited for my proposals and forwarded them to my competition.

[medeek]

Snow and Wind Load analysis added to the truss calculator as well as the estimated truss weight. See the changelog for details:

http://design.medeek.com/calculator/changelog.html