Looking for input from anyone that has successfully built a Timber Frame or Post and Beam in the State of Oregon without having to involve an engineer.

Beyond that - any TF engineers licensed in Oregon willing to do plan review and stamping? Charge for that?

Also anyone experienced with the WWPA lumber design suite - free version - and if they found the building inspectors (in Oregon) receptive to the span and load calculations as sufficiently compliant to the code. Or engineers that have used it and found it accurate - it was designed by Forum Engineers.

Lastly - When building a TF do you increase the minimum load bearing capability in your calculations to compensate for the additional weight of the heavy timbers? For example - the code book calls for Floor Joists to support 10# DL and 40# LL with L360 max deflect. That is for 2x members. My joists that are exposed are 4x and my rafters are 6x, my beams are all 8x and all load bearing posts are 8x8. I figured a conservative rule of thumb would be to increase the load values for dead load by a factor of 4 and the live load by 2. All my deflection calcs from the WWPA are much less than 1/360 so that should be good right?

Lastly do you use the default NDS 2001 duration limits of .90 for dead, 1.0 for live, 1.15 for snow, 1.25 for roof and 2.0 for impact or does Oregon shave a few points for a more strict calculation? When trying to reproduce the span table in the book I had to use a Cd value of .98 for the Floor Live load to match the span in the code book.

Any input would be great - but prefer comments from either actual TF engineer or someone that is like me - homeowner - that did it alone and it worked - ie they were able to get permit to build without engineer or with only a review by an engineer.