is 4x really minimum wood post size

huangyhg

is 4x really minimum wood post size?
according to a plans review for a multi-family, 3-story wood framed apartment building structure, the "overzealous" 3rd-party plans check engineer (bless his soul) made this comment (bear in mind that the definition of "column" and "post" includes compression members located within wood stud bearing walls):
"columns and posts souuld not be less than 4x nominal. review and clarify. reference ibc section 1603.1"
now correct me if i am wrong - what nonsense. if (2)-2x built-up post calculates adequately, i do not see anything in the "incomprehensible" building code otherwise.
check out our whitepaper library.
ibc 1603.1 doesn't seem to have anything to do with 4x4 posts/columns.  its a loading section.
not having my ibc handy at the moment, i can't comment on the code implication but i am inclined to believe you are correct as long as two studs are adequately fastened along its height and it calcs out.
then again, is it such a big deal (costwise) to the owner?  if it occurs only a few times, i would bite my lips and provide a 4x post.
whyun, it is a big deal in multi-family construction. if it were a custom home, a 6x6 would not cause a problem.
i can't find any reference in the ibc either.  is it possibly a state or city ammendment to the code for your area?
zo40,
negative to those. i was ranting, this plans checker did 4 pages of these nit-picking comments.
sacrebleu,
i'm with jae the cited section doesn't seem to apply. ask him to "clarify."
rik
rday,
i know it doesn't apply. that was symptomatic of his entire plans check. it is a really punitive plans check, and they (the 3rd party plans check companies) never reply to requests for clarification. therefore, we just try our best and include an "answers to comments" letter.
specifically, we have large metro area with various different towns making up the suburbs, all different plans check departments. they frequently farm-out the plans check to these professional plans-checking engineering consultants (some do 100% plans checking).
as a postscript, we decided to register a complaint (with the engineering registration board) against the 3rd party plan check company.
it would have taken more hours to comply with all the absurd comments than to do the job from scratch.
it is simply not possible for all building departments/agencies to handle all of the work load that are submitted by the design engineers.  simply, there are more design engineers than plan reviewers in the world.
thus these agencies resort to contracting out their review to various local consulting firms.
it is my experience that the expertise of these consulting firms doing plan review vary a great deal.  in addition, it is impossible for the building official to maintain consistency among all of their consulting engineers, let alone within their own departments.
from time to time, you may encounter a consulting plan reviewer who put in needless comments (as many comments as they can) as a justification of the fee they have collected from the government.
when you encounter a dispute with the "contract plan reviewer", you may contact the building official to get their official ruling.  contract plan reviewers are not always right...
good luck.
in this case, the building official won't give an opinion, and the 3rd party won't answer any phone calls/e-mail. i have lost my sense of humor on this one, hence the hard line.