Deck Beam

[blayman]

Help!

 

I'm having a bad day, using X-8 and for the life of me I can't get my Deck Beam to move to the outer edge of the deck.

I've been playing with all my defaults and the beam ALWAYS builds 16" from the end of the deck. I can move the post spacing and post distance from the ends of the beam, but can't move the beam.

 

Thanks in advance for any help.

 

Bill

[Greg_NY61]

Select your deck and DBL Click (or use a shortcut if you have it set) and open DBX > Select Deck Support> and under Deck Beam enter your beam spacing.

 

Here is an image I hope it helps

 

 

[javatom]

You can also turn off auto framing and move it to anywhere you want it.

[blayman]

Thanks for the replies, but the beam spacing does not move my beam to the end of the deck. And I know I can turn auto framing off and move the beam where I want it, but  I should not have to do that.

 

I want it to frame automatic with out the overhang at the end.

 

Bill

[Chief16Designer]

Post the plan or a picture

[CJSpud]

As far as I have been able to determine, you have to manually move your Chief generated deck beam to the outside of your deck, if that is where you want it.  I have done many plans where I have a roof over the deck and the corner and/or other posts/columns extend through the deck floor framing to support the deck room roof beams (and the roof).  This design option means the outer beams get moved to the outer edge (between the columns).  To properly detail this takes a little effort and time but can be done fairly easily. 

 

Chief has the beam (or beams) hard-programmed to place where they do depending on the size of your deck.  I was just playing around with this a bit using Chief's default Deck Support > Beam Spacing of 168" (14') and I couldn't quite figure out what that dimension exactly means.  Chief added an extra beam when my deck depth got to 14' 9" (measured to the outside edge of the deck railing wall from the outer edge of the foundation wall).  The distance to the inside edge of the outer beam, measured from the foundation wall, measures 13' 3-1/4", not 14' which is what I thought the default value should have exceeded before the extra beam was added.  I did have a play with changing beam and joist sizes but still couldn't figure out how Chief has the beam spacing.programmed to work.  Maybe someone else has figured it out and can elaborate.

 

I didn't bother experimenting with other beam spacing values.  I find it easier just to let Chief auto build the deck framing once I've sized the joists etc. and then manually edit the deck framing.

[justmejerry]

I think that the distance is hard coded into Chief. Believe it is 16" to centreline of beam for the offset and only way to change that is manual edit(should be a setting for this IMO). The post to end of beam has this offset available, once again measured to centre of posts. I have yet to see any logic in the beam spacing. It will make sure you don't exceed your spacing but you get such oddball placement. Decks that I draw and build tend to be so custom that it is inevitable you will have to manipulate manually at some point; not a big issue. Would be nice to have a few more tools in the box though.

[Greg_NY61]

For a deck I max out 2x10 16"OC  beam @14'  with a 2' joist overhang. 

[blayman]

Thanks everyone for the info.

 

I too have been playing with different numbers for the beam, and no matter how you change the numbers the the last beam ends up 16" short of the edge.

 

I was just trying to avoid having to move the beam every time I have a roof over the deck.

 

Thanks again,

 

Bill