What is the typical stud spacing for wood or metal studs? 5

[TDIengineer]

I just asked this question to one of the new employees.. and they didn't know the answer.

Am I crazy? or if you graduated from college with a civil engineering degree wouldn't you at least know this?

Just wondering if I am expecting too much here... wow.

 

[TLHS]

I only vaguely know and probably wouldn't actually apply it without double checking part nine of the NBCC. I honestly just don't do light framing work except on very rare occasions.

 

[Archie264]

Sorry, I hate to tell you, that doesn't surprise me at all. In fact, I'd be more surprised if he did know the answer. They don't teach much of that type of thing in colleges; they concentrate more on theory and political indoctrination, not practical applications.

The only reason I knew it was because I worked as a construction laborer in the summer between school. It was the best thing I could have done though at the time I thought I was missing out since many of my classmates had high profile internships in air conditioned offices. But, if the internships weren't either in structural design or working directly for a construction company they probably didn't learn that type of thing there either. And "construction management", wherein they served as an owner's representative might not expose them to that either.

My $.02 worth.

 

[Archie264]

For clarity, my post above was in response to the original question.

 

[TDIengineer]

Thanks Archie. I guess I was also very handy as a teenager because I knew this much about buildings by that time.

Thanks for the perspective.

 

[ameyerrenke]

Agreed, they don't teach it. Its easy too look up, why bother wasting part of your curriculum on it I guess..

 

[amorrison]

Standard dimension in Canada is 16 inches center to center for 2 by 4 inch(actually 1.5x3.5inch) wood studs.
If 2x6 (actually 1.5x5.5 inches) studs are used then the center to center distance is 24 inches.

Don't know for steel studs but probably the same so they can be substituted 1:1.

 

[msquared48]

Fresh into the structural workforce in 1978 (I volunteered), even after spending 6 years working for a public utility part time during school, and four years in the Army COE, I had no idea what a shear wall was. The common stud spacing I picked up outside of school at 10 watching a carpenter do remodels in our old house. The stud spacing was never mentioned in college, or was the shear wall.

So... I am not surprised either, unfortunately.

Mike McCann
MMC Engineering

 

[TDIengineer]

I didn't learn it in school either.. I learned it real life.. Just surprised that if you wanted to study engineering as a profession that one didn't have a more natural apt to understand building construction even before going to school.
I wanted to know how everything worked including cars and computers at a very young age. In my opinion, if you don't have that natural thirst for how things work .... it is doubtful you'll be a successful engineer.

 

[ameyerrenke]

I agree with you to a point... and yes I've known since I was probably 10 as well, but if I didn't have my father who taught me the spacing I probably wouldn't have known either. Stud spacing just isn't one of those things that I would have had a thirst for knowledge on, unless I had a reason. Personally I was more into how cars and computers worked when I was younger.

 

[madmantrapper]

When I was younger, no one knew what a computer was. Oh yea that's because they were not invented yet.

 

[SteelPE]

I learned that outside of school as well while working as a laborer framing houses (for my father AKA slave driver). I have never even had a wood class in undergrad or graduate school. Everything I know about wood has been self taught over many years.

When I was interviewing for my first gig I was shown a set of drawings and asked what the solid triangle was on the end of a beam... I had no idea. Dindn't get the job. Now I do work with the same company as a consultant (cleaning up their messes) ironic I guess.

 

[hotgas]

When I worked for a "third-party inspection" firm, we hired an architect with a Master's degree in Architecture. He did not know what drywall was, nor which pipes were the water supply lines (which were copper).

 

[Ron]

It amazes me at times, just what the curriculum committees at universities think might be relevant.

For 5 years I taught in a university. I'm an engineer and I taught contractor (construction management) courses (I'm also a licensed general contractor). In each of those, I tried to introduce practicality and a relationship to the "real world", with the necessity of academic/theoretical exposure. There is plenty of room in any curriculum for connecting to the working world from academia. Much of the reason for not doing so is that many of those in academia have NO experience! A travesty in my opinion.

To have a student graduate a program of civil engineering study and not understand some basics of construction is wrong. There is no excuse for this. Curriculum committees complain constantly that they must cover all the topics required by their respective accreditation programs (ABET, etc). True, but they cannot lose sight that the goal of any engineering, construction or architecture program is to produce graduates who can contribute in the commercial or public realm.

Our task as professionals is not to hire academic automatons who can recite theory, but to select those who can think! Those who are exposed to a variety of offerings spanning theory and practicality are better prepared to be productive from the start than those who are only exposed to theory.

 

[oldrunner]

Well,we took timber design in our junior year, but we actually made scale model houses in our freshman year besides learning structural drafting in our sophomore year. Young prospective engineers should look carefully at the curriculum of the college that they want to attend. Most four year civil engineering curriculum's have about two years of engineering and about two years of social issues. Maybe that's why ASCE is pushing for a fifth year.

I went to our local library and reviewed the curriculum's of various colleges and picked out one - knew nothing about the school - which basically only had 900 students at that time. Never even told my folks then, and never visited the college before I went away to the school.

Turned out to be one of the best moves I ever made (besides my wife).
Small class size, great professor (European trained), exposed to the then current structural engineering thinking - shells,(concrete and ferrocement), prestressed concrete, designing and detailing connections, Hardy Cross methods (with haunches) (system only about four years old then); glulam beams (curved as well, Vierendeel trusses - and hands on building structural projects (hyperbolc paraboloid 16 foot square out of 6" x 16 feet 1/4 inch strips in each direction - senior project).

Probably some fellows on this site have guessed that this the Architectural Engineering program at Cal Poly. This curriculum should be taught in many of the schools. And per the foregoing discussions, it isn't that this program is so good but that many of the civil engineering curriculum's are so bad.

 

[dcarr82775]

I knew before college, but the wood design class I took went over it. They even went over the why things are spaced the way they are. I didn't even get any political indoctrination, but then that part is a myth anyway.

Of course I went to a university that is primarily for engineering.

 

[ztengguy]

its a function of design, correct? the higher the wall, the closer the spacing needs to be. That should have been his or her answer. Oh yea, and usually its on a spacing of multiples into 4'-0", i.e. 8", 12", 16", 24".
Jim

 

[Archie264]

dcarr,

Political indoctrination is a myth? You must have gone to college a very long time ago.

 

[EngineeringEric]

Archie,

My college days were not that long ago and i cannot say there was any political indoctrination. I would say there was far less indoctrination than the provided by any one-sided/one-party Talk Radio station or equivalent News Media (any side). I would say that if anything a subtle message was to questions everything and perform out own research before judging. I think for someone to state that college kids are brainwashed when them themselves have not attended the institution that they are blaming is quite telling of ones ideology.

As to the original post. I do not recall if i was taught the typical spacing as i already knew it from my father are exposure to houses. But i would judge the person who does not know that and wants to design structures. I wonder if they know what welding is or if it is just 0.928Dl?

 

[Archie264]

Eric, to state that you weren't affected might be telling or your ideology. Do you mean to suggest, for example, that none of your engineering classes were imbued with "green building" or "global warming" philosophies, taught as unquestionable truth? And that's just on the engineering side of the house. The humanities classes are rife with all sorts of grievance studies curricula. If your college was bereft of that then count yourself very fortunate and amongst a very small minority.