How many anchor bolts does a house's sill plate need?

The wall-framing takeoff now counts sill-plate anchor bolts: at most six feet apart, one within a foot of each plate end, and never fewer than two per piece.

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The wall-framing takeoff priced concrete, rebar and forms for a foundation but left out the bolts that hold the house to it. It now counts them.

The rule it uses is the common one: bolts at most six feet apart, one within a foot of each end of every plate piece, and never fewer than two per piece. The sill on each side is cut into equal pieces no longer than the board stock you type, so a 39-foot wall of 16-foot boards is three pieces of 13 feet, not two long ones and a stub. The sample 40 x 28 ft house comes out at 30 bolts for 10 plate pieces, checked by hand in the test file.

Spacing, end distance and stock length are inputs you set. The tool does not know your code edition or your engineer's schedule, and says so in its notes. Interior bearing lines and hold-downs are not counted. The count feeds the budget as an anchorBolt price line, and the page does not read the setting yet (CLI and plan file only).

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