Elevated Home Pier Spacing Recommendations

Just looking for a consensus/opinions on TYPICAL REASONABLE spacing for piers under an elevated (drive under) home (carport + 2 stories). The foundation concrete piers atop a gridded grade beam system. The engineer says "anything you can draw I can spec" but engineers don't think about cost sometimes. If the piers are too far apart the beams/floor system get expensive, too close together and the concrete gets expensive. I am shooting for 14' span for the parking area and 12' elsewhere, and maybe stretching it to 16' in one single story area. Does that sound like too far?

I WILL be getting the plans engineered, but am still at the point where the floorplan can be tweaked to fit a sensible foundation, so I want to make sure the foundation ideas I have are reasonable.

Miranda, I believe you are just looking at one of the realities of what we do (the balance between what one can afford and what one wants), the greater the span, the higher the cost usually. My advice is to let the Engineer "Engineer" as they are licensed to do and then live with the results.

DJP

you may need to decide in concert with an Engineer , are the beams solid wood, LVL, Steel ? all will effect budget and design . there are a few online Beam Calculators available to play around with too see this recent thread over on Chieftalk too.

https://forums.chiefarchitect.com/in...ses-and-beams/