Opening room space has never been easier because of the modern day building materials designers can implement into a design.
More and more homeowners like to have the wide open feeling from large open doors and windows, to interior openings in dividing walls, and wider spaced rooms. Before the introduction of pre engineered joist/beams and truss systems this generally wasn't feasible in the housing sector.
Most national and provincial building codes didn't allow for room widths of much more than 16' before requiring some sort of load bearing support. This in turn would sometimes cause either expensive steel beams or wildly displaced bulkheads. In a lot of these residential buildings, it would also incur high professional engineering costs to complete the design if wider rooms were asked for.
Now with pre engineered floor joist systems such as “Nascor” or “Trus joist”, depending on the joist depth, and provided it doesn't contravene other building codes such as room sizes, room widths can be designed wider than 22'.
A floor can also be designed with sections cantilevered, which makes some very interesting and amazing wide-open and high ceiling areas in places such as foyers or living rooms. And to top it all off on the second floors, the technology of roof truss systems can produce clear spans up to 40', before getting into higher engineering costs.
To get a better idea of the room spaces, measure it out with some temporary lines made out of string or lumber of some kind either in your back yard or large area like your local gymnasium if you can be allowed for 20 minutes or so. And then ask your designer, who most likely uses a Computer Aided Drafting – CAD software, to take you on a virtual walk through the house before the final design is complete, just to see what it will look like having the wide open spaces.
