Validation notes carried on the derived building, each with a level, a stable rule id, a message containing the live figure and, where relevant, the opening or wall it is about. Rules span openings, structure, additions and foundation.
Also called: validations · warnings · errors · engineering checks · will this pass
It tells you the building will not work while you can still change it
More than forty standing checks across openings, structure, additions and foundation: an opening running off its wall or under the eave, two openings claiming the same wall space, a truss span past what a plant will build, a post longer than yard stock, a footing sitting above frost depth. Each finding carries the live number that tripped it, so you are not hunting for what is wrong.
Minimum roof slope stops the design, it does not warn about it
Each roofing product carries its own floor — ribbed steel 3/12, corrugated 2/12, lap-sealed and mechanical seam 0.5/12, snap-lock 3/12, shingles 4/12 — and the design will not go below the one you chose. Under that floor, exposed-fastener metal draws water back through the screw holes and voids essentially every manufacturer warranty. That is not something to pass along to a customer as a note.
Blocking rules block, judgement calls ask
Errors are things that cannot be built or ordered. Warnings are things you might still do with your eyes open — an end wall that is more door than wall, bay spacing outside the usual band, a lean-to past rafter-framing span, a gambrel in special-order territory. Heads-ups carry what a drawing would never say on its own: knee bracing on tall walls, snow drift at a clerestory or a gambrel break, ledger load handed to the main building's footings.
Click the warning and it takes you to the door
A finding that names an opening is a button: click it and that opening is selected, outlined and swung into view, with its card scrolled into place in the panel. One message is raised per offending opening rather than one sentence covering all of them, so on a 60 foot wall with four windows you are not hunting for which two overlap.
Warnings do not park themselves across your model
A finding pops for five seconds when it first appears, then retires into an Issues panel with a running count on the button. Nothing is lost by being dismissed and nothing sits on top of the building forever. A message that never leaves stops being read.
You can read the checks you passed, not only the ones you failed
The panel lists every check the tool can raise, tripped or not, each with a plain sentence on why a builder should care about it. No warnings on its own tells you nothing about what was actually looked at. A list of the standing questions tells you the design was checked for truss span, embedment, frost depth, flashing and drift, and came back clean.
- 1Errors block: an opening that runs off its wall or under the eave, two openings sharing wall space, an opening claiming a corner post, a roof below its system's minimum slope, a hip plan wider than it is long, a gambrel past the truss ceiling, a post or gable stud past yard stock, a monoslope high wall past buildable range.
- 2Warnings want a decision: end walls that are more opening than wall (post-frame resists lateral load through the roof diaphragm and endwall shear), bay spacing outside the usual band, a lean-to past rafter-framing span, a mansard band taller than a story, a special-order gambrel span.
- 3Heads-ups carry what a drawing would not otherwise say: tall-wall knee bracing, vehicle clearance at a lean-to's outer eave, snow drift against a clerestory or at a gambrel break, ledger load handed to the main building's columns and footings, hip ridge bracing, IRC R903.2 flashing.
- 4Findings carry a structured subject, so clicking one selects the opening it names.
- 5Every threshold lives in the engine and FRAMING_RULES; the finding's own message carries the live figure.
A builder can otherwise draw and sell a building that cannot be ordered, and find out when the truss plant calls back. Checks run continuously against real limits: gambrel trusses have a factory span ceiling, a 6x6 has a stock length, and a mono truss gets un-orderably deep past about 40ft of span. Minimum roof slope is a blocking error rather than a warning, because below it exposed-fastener steel leaks at the screws and voids virtually every manufacturer warranty — that one is not a judgement call.
- Selling a building that cannot be permitted, ordered or warrantied.
- Engineering concerns that only surface after the deposit.
See it on your own jobs
Twenty minutes, your numbers, no slide deck. We’ll build one of your real buildings in front of you and send you the estimate link at the end — yours to keep either way.
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