Start with the shell
Every building starts as a shell: the structure that holds up the roof and carries the walls. In post frame that's posts, trusses, purlins and girts. In red iron it's columns, rafters, purlins and girts. The shell decides the clear span, the eave height and where the big doors can go.
Getting the shell right means members land where they actually would. In post frame, trusses bear on posts or on a header carried by the posts. Girts run between posts. Openings interrupt girts and need framing around them. A tool that draws a box and fills it with a repeating pattern gets the picture right and the material list wrong.
Complex buildings
Real jobs aren't a single rectangle. A shop with a lean-to on one side and an attached building on the other. A building with a porch. Sections at different heights. Open walls on a lean-to used for equipment cover.
Each of those changes the framing where the pieces meet. Members get shorter, longer, doubled or left out. Roof planes meet at different heights and need framing and trim at the joint. If the tool treats each section as its own box, the takeoff double-counts some members and misses others, and you find out when the crew is on site.
A design tool earns its keep at these joints. Anybody can draw a rectangle. The question is what happens to the framing when you attach something to it.
Interior framing on more than one floor
This is where a lot of configurators stop. The shell is done, the customer wants to live or work inside it, and the tool has nothing to say about the inside.
A barndominium, or a shop with an office upstairs, needs interior walls, an upper floor and stairs that line up with the structure. In post frame, the usual approach is stick-framed walls inside the post frame shell. The upper floor needs joists and support that work with the shell, not against it. Depending on the design, floor joists may be carried by ledgers on the posts, by interior bearing walls, or both.
Redline does first- and second-floor interior stick framing inside a post frame shell. Partition walls, the upper floor and the shell are modeled together, so the interior takeoff comes from the same design as the exterior. More on framing the inside of a shell.
Why framing depth matters to the business
Framing is the material list. If the framing is modeled member by member, the takeoff is a list of members at their lengths. If it isn't, the takeoff is an estimate dressed up as a list.
Framing is also the drawings. Dimensioned elevations, sheet layouts and post layouts come from the design, so the drawings and the order agree. When the customer changes something, both change together. Nobody has to remember to update the other one.
And framing is the price. Once your supplier price sheet is loaded, the price comes from what's in the design. A complex building gets priced as the complex building it is, not as a rectangle with a markup for "extras."
Where Redline sits
Redline is the most advanced framing design system: shells, complex buildings and interior framing on multiple floors. It covers five framing systems: post frame, red iron (bolt-up and weld-up), stick frame, hybrid post frame, and tube frame / carports.
The same design work happens on a phone or at a desk, and the same design drives the material list, the drawings and the quote. Customers who design on your website can add attached buildings, lean-tos, open walls, partition walls and mezzanines before they ever call you. Why custom design beats presets.
How to test framing depth
- Turn off the cladding and look at the structure.
- Add a lean-to and look at the framing where it meets the main building.
- Put a large overhead door in a sidewall and check the framing around it.
- Add an upper floor inside a post frame shell and look at the interior walls and stairs.
- Compare the material list against how you'd build it.
The last step is the one that counts. If the list matches what your crew would actually order, the tool understands framing. If you're correcting it line by line, it doesn't, no matter how good the render looks.
The full configurator is $250/mo with 2 seats included and $0 setup, with a 10-day free trial to run that test.