How To Check A Steel Carport Design

abrogard · 07-12-2010, 08:01 PM

I want to design my own carport using steel and I can't find any guidelines or tables or whatever to help me with it.

So I could knock up a quick design off the top of my head with reference to stuff I see around me - such a 6 150mm 'C' channel column and 100mm C channel purlins (right name?) joining them and then more 100mm channels crossing them as bearers for the roofing - I could carry on like that and quickly have a simple design.

But how do I know if it is strong enough? How can I check it?

We must present our designs to the local council for approval and I guess the usual procedure is to either buy a design or get an engineer or architect to check your own design.

It'll probably be necessary to have the final design approved by an engineer before it can even be submitted to the council. So it will have to go there eventually anyway. But I would like to do as good a job as I can first - and I'd like to learn as much as I can, too.

I'm in Australia, dealing with Australian standards and such and I've googled around and looked wherever I can but I've failed to find anything yet.

However today I saw a thread in this forum about checking a wooden construction and that gave me hope I might get some direction and/or help here.

regards,

ab

Ron6519 · 07-12-2010, 08:21 PM

The price point would be more effective if you just have it done professionally to begin with.
Ron

abrogard · 07-13-2010, 06:44 AM

The price point ain't the point, unless I've missed the point.

What are you suggesting? That I go to an engineer or architect or whatever and have them draw up a carport design for me?

After I tell them how I want it - what materials, what method of construction? Or they tell me that, too?

Either way I don't think that's what I want.

I want to learn something and to do something.

It may never ever get built so it may never ever get, need to get, appraised by an engineer or whatever or presented to a council.

Too many words. I always use too many words and finish up confusing everyone including myself.

Let me put it like this, re-phrase the question:

If I draw up a steel carport design how will I know if it is any good?

Ron6519 · 07-13-2010, 08:32 AM

"If I draw up a steel carport design how will I know if it is any good?"
By good, you mean it follows at least the minimum code for your region.
You would show the design to someone qualified to know.
The ,"I want to learn something to do something" concept might work if you know what the building code is and you think you can build something that will conform. But if it doesn't, and either due to snow loads or storm issues, the carport collapses on a car or kid, you will have indeed learned something.
Your need to learn needs to be put on the back burner when the consequences can cause injury or death.
Again, too many words.
You can build something, but designed by someone who knows what they are doing.
Ron

abrogard · 07-13-2010, 06:45 PM

Mate, we're getting all mixed up here.

There is no chance of me building something unsafe.

NO chance.

NOTHING will be built here without prior approval of the council and they won't approve what hasn't been prior approved by engineers as meeting a whole swag of Australian Standards.

O.K. ?

I would like to design some carports and some sheds and play with the designs and cost the designs, in consultation with my wife, and we'll work out what we'd like to go with.

And THEN we'd take the design to the professionals for the required procedures. We'd have to. We have no choice in the matter.

But we don't want to pay to sit down with the professionals for an hour or two and dream something up there and then with them.

No thank you. We want to spend weeks and maybe months visiting and revisiting this project, this occupation or whatever you want to call it - this interest in our own home and surrounds.

Slowly over a long period of time we want to come back to it again and again with new ideas.

And we don't want to waste time dreaming up obviously impractical, unsound buildings.

So we need some basic knowledge and basic tools. So that we can apply both to our designs and reject designs, or adjust designs, that don't meet the adequacy criteria.

O.K. ?

In fact, the situation is not so dire as it may sound because

1. We wouldn't be dreaming things up from nowhere but we've be borrowing ideas from structures we've seen and
2. Our inclination is to build much, much stronger than current structures - we are not at all inclined towards cost shaving to the point of prejudice to structural integrity or strength. Not at all.

Quite the opposite. I detest the 'monocoque' construction though I can't mount a valid scientific argument against it from my unlearned position. Hateful though it is to walk delicately on a flimsy corrugated roof in danger of crushing corrugations at any minute and purlins twisting beneath you with your weight and roof trusses swaying in the wind I am forced to admit that the finished structure is strong and sound and cheaper than any other to build.

Finished they have the strength of an eggshell. Punch a hole anywhere and the thing still stands.

But I don't like them. I want to build a skeleton that stands rigid and firm by itself and upon which I can fasten walls and roofs that will only make it stronger.

O.K. ? Does that help as an explanation of where we are coming from? Does that establish our bona fides somehow or other?

Hopefully.

regards,

ab

Ron6519 · 07-13-2010, 07:11 PM

You are not qualified for this job.
Someone elso can come along and deal with this. I'm done.
Ron

abrogard · 07-13-2010, 08:00 PM

Well you sound a bit sad, Ron, I'm sorry to say.

Defeated. That's awful.

Sorry about that. I never intended anything remotely like that when I posted my question.

It still seems to me like a perfectly valid question, a perfectly valid search for knowledge, a perfectly valid thing for my wife and I to engage in at home.

But your reaction seems to suggest otherwise, rather strongly. It mystifies me completely. "you are not qualified..." Who 'you'? Me? Qualified for what job? To understand how to check a drawing? That can't be right.

'someone else can come along and deal with this..' ! 'Deal with this'? What? Not 'answer this' but 'deal with this...' ? Like a problem? Something extraordinary that has you beat?

It was just a question. Is just a question. No drama.

I don't know what's going on. I'll go meditate on it.

diy_2010 · 10-05-2010, 04:32 AM

I ordered a pre-made carport , steel frame, 4 car space.. I saw the design in its web site, you can go and take a look at http://www.hitong.us/structural.html.
Hope that can help you. The price is reasonable, if your area is windy and all weather, you need to use good quality cover and frames.

abrogard · 10-05-2010, 04:59 AM

Hello diy_2010,

welcome to the (relatively) chatless chatroom.

Thanks for your link, I've been there and saved it, it will be grist for the mill.

I've got tons of stuff now. All tucked away until I can get to it - I have a very busy time with two little kids before I get to anything else - so many things have to be put aside until I can get to them.

I've got explanations, designs, tables, calculators, programs, all sorts of stuff. A bewildering variety. Much of it completely wrong for me - talking about building skyscrapers maybe, you know.

But here's one that I'm very much waiting to get into when I finally do get some time, you might find it interesting yourself, I think any normally curious DIY type man would find it interesting:

http://www.fao.org/docrep/s1250e/S1250E00.htm#Contents