Framing Calculator - Wall Studs, Plates, Headers & Cost

How to use it

1. Type the wall length in feet and inches, and pick the ceiling height. The three presets are the three precut stud lengths a yard stocks, and each one frames a wall a little over its nominal height for a reason the tool explains.
2. Choose 2x4 or 2x6 and the on-center spacing. Sixteen inches is the default nearly everywhere, twenty four is advanced framing and normally wants 2x6.
3. Add your doors and windows. Type the rough opening, not the door size: a 36 inch door needs a 38 inch rough opening. Each one is drawn on the elevation with its king, jack, header, cripple and sill members labeled.
4. Set what happens at each end of the wall. An end that just stops adds nothing, a California corner adds one stud, a traditional three-stud corner adds two, and each wall teeing into this one adds two more.
5. Pick the plate stock length you can get, turn the treated bottom plate on if the wall lands on concrete, and read the takeoff. The ledger shows the honest count beside the naive one, the cut plan for every short piece, and a cost you can edit line by line.
6. Switch to project mode for a whole room. Add a wall per side, assign each corner once, and the takeoff sums into one order with the plates packed across every run.

At a glance

• 12 ft partition, 8 ft ceiling, one 36 in door: 12 studs, not the 16 a member-by-member count gives. Two layout studs fall inside the opening, and the two sticks they free cut both 81 in jacks with a 6 1/8 in cripple out of each offcut.
• The same wall, plates: Three 12 ft runs. Three 16 ft sticks with 4 ft left on each, or three 12 ft sticks with nothing left at all. The tool names the stock length that wastes least.
• 24 ft garage wall, 9 ft, 16 ft garage door and a window: 19 studs against 48 counted naively. The garage door alone displaces 12 layout studs, and all six jacks and fifteen cripples come out of the stock those studs freed.
• 12 x 12 room, four walls, a door and a window: 58 studs including the cull allowance, 12 plate sticks, two header sticks and 6 lb of 16d, about $409 in materials or $8.52 per linear foot of wall.
• Why an 8 ft wall is 8 ft 1 1/8 in: A 92 5/8 precut stud plus three 1 1/2 in plates is 97 1/8 in. That extra inch and an eighth is what lets two 48 in sheets of drywall stack on a wall with a drywalled ceiling.
• How many studs for a 20 ft wall at 16 in on center: 16 on the layout, 18 bought with the cull allowance. At 24 in on center it is 11 and 13.

How the math works

The layout comes first. The end studs sit with their outside face flush with the end of the wall, so their centers are 3/4 in in, and between them the marks run at the on-center spacing measured from the end of the wall. That is why a framer marks 15 1/4 first and puts the stud on the far side of the mark: it lands the center on 16, and it lands the edge of a 96 in sheet on the center of a stud. On a wall that is a whole number of spacings long this gives exactly the industry formula, length divided by spacing, rounded up, plus one. Openings are drawn onto that layout. Each one takes two kings, two jacks below the header, four jacks once the rough opening passes 72 in, a header of the plies and size you chose cut to the rough opening plus one jack thickness each side, cripples above sized as the rough opening width over the spacing rounded up and less one, and for a window a doubled sill and the same number of cripples below. Any layout stud whose center falls inside a rough opening is not installed, so it comes off the full-height list, and the stock it would have used is the first place the jacks, cripples, sills and blocking are cut from. New studs are bought only once those short pieces need more stock than the openings freed. Plates are three runs the length of the wall, two with a single top plate, split into pieces no longer than your stock and packed across every run in the project. Sheathing is wall area divided by 32 sq ft a sheet, with openings over 32 sq ft taken out and smaller ones left in because the offcuts around them are the waste allowance. Nails are four 16d per vertical member, one every 16 in laminating the top plate, ten per opening, at 49 nails to the pound.

1. Mark the layout from the end of the wall, not from the first stud

   Hook the tape on the end of the bottom plate and mark 15 1/4 in, then 31 1/4, then every 16 in after that. Put the stud on the far side of each mark. That puts the center of the second stud at exactly 16 in from the end, the center of the seventh at 96 in, and the edge of the first 4x8 sheet on a stud center with half of that stud left to catch the next sheet. Marking the first stud at 16 instead of 15 1/4 shifts the whole wall by 3/4 in and every sheet edge lands in mid air. On a 12 ft wall that layout gives ten studs: one at each end and eight marks in between.

2. Draw the openings on the layout and see what they take away

   A 36 in door needs a 38 in rough opening, which on a 12 ft wall with one door sits 53 in from the left end and covers the 64 in and 80 in layout marks. Those two studs are not installed. That is the single biggest thing a stud calculator misses: it counts ten studs and then adds the opening members on top, when two of the ten were never going in. On a 24 ft garage wall with a 16 ft door, twelve of the nineteen layout studs disappear into the opening.

3. Frame the opening: king, jack, header, cripple, sill

   A king stud runs full height on each side of the opening and is nailed to the plates like any other stud. A jack, also called a trimmer, is cut short and nailed to the inside face of the king, and the header sits on top of it. Past a 72 in rough opening the jacks double up, two each side. The header is the plies you chose, cut to the rough opening plus 1 1/2 in for each jack it lands on, so 41 in over a 38 in opening. Cripples are the short studs that carry the layout on across the opening: above the header, and for a window below the sill as well. The sill is two pieces of the rough opening width, stacked.

4. Cut the short pieces out of the stock the opening freed

   This is the step no other calculator takes. The two studs the door displaced are two full sticks you no longer have to install. An 81 in jack out of a 92 5/8 precut leaves an 11 5/8 in offcut, which is longer than the 6 1/8 in cripple that goes above the header on the same wall. So both jacks and both cripples come out of the two sticks the opening freed, and the wall needs no extra studs at all for the opening. That is 12 studs against the 16 you get by counting every member as its own stick, before any cull allowance.

5. Add the corners, the intersections and the cull allowance

   A California corner, also called a two-stud or three-stud energy corner depending on who is counting, adds one stud turned flat or set back so drywall has backing and the corner still takes insulation. A traditional three-stud corner adds two. A wall teeing into this one adds two studs to make a nailing pocket, unless you use ladder blocking instead, which adds none and leaves the cavity open. On top of all of that goes the cull allowance, ten percent by default and never less than two sticks, because you will pull crowned, bowed and split studs out of the pile and you do not want to drive back for them.

6. Cut the plates from the stock length you can actually buy

   A wall has a bottom plate and, normally, two top plates, so a 12 ft wall is three 12 ft runs, 36 linear feet. From 16 ft sticks that is three sticks with 4 ft left on each. From 12 ft sticks it is three sticks with nothing left at all. Longer stock is not automatically better, and the tool names the length that wastes least for your walls. Joints have to land on a stud center, and the cap plate has to lap the joint below it by at least 24 in, which is IRC R602.3.2 and the reason the second top plate exists at all.

7. Count the sheathing and the fasteners

   Structural sheathing is wall area over 32 sq ft a sheet. Openings smaller than a full sheet are left in the area, because the offcuts around a window are the waste allowance and cutting them out on paper leaves you short. A garage door comes out, because 112 sq ft of hole is not waste. Nails come off the IRC fastening schedule in the same rough way a framer estimates them: four 16d per vertical member, two at each end, plus one every 16 in stitching the two top plates together, plus about ten per opening for the header and the sill. At 49 16d commons to the pound, a 12 ft wall with a door is 2 lb.

8. Read the cost as a planning ledger, not a quote

   Every price on the page is a field. The defaults are typical US retail for framing lumber in 2026 and they will be wrong for your yard by a meaningful margin, in either direction, because framing lumber is the most volatile common building material there is. Type in the shelf price of a stud and the whole ledger moves. A bare interior partition lands near $9 per linear foot of wall, a sheathed exterior wall with a garage header nearer $13, and the number worth carrying to a contractor conversation is the per foot figure rather than the total.

Worked scenarios, start to finish

Real jobs with the numbers carried all the way through, so you can see how the estimate is built and check your own figures against them.

The judgement calls a pro makes

Decisions the tool cannot make for you, and how someone who does this for a living thinks them through.

Sixteen or twenty four inches on center

Sixteen is the default because it is what the sheet goods, the trades and the inspector all expect, and because a 2x4 wall at 16 in on center is prescriptively fine almost anywhere in a house. Twenty four inches, which is the core of advanced framing, removes roughly a third of the studs, opens a third more cavity for insulation and cuts the thermal bridging through the wall. The cost is that it normally has to be a 2x6 wall, the joists and rafters above have to stack directly over the studs, the drywall wants to be 5/8 in or it will telegraph the framing, and your inspector may want to see the detail before you sheet it. On a garage or a shop it is an easy win. On a house with a conventional roof and a plan drawn at 16 in, it is a bigger change than it looks.

2x4 or 2x6 exterior walls

The decision is really about the cavity. A 2x4 bay is 3 1/2 in deep and takes an R-13 or R-15 batt. A 2x6 bay is 5 1/2 in and takes R-19 or R-21, and R-21 is the one that actually fills it. A 2x6 wall costs roughly seventy percent more in studs and plates, eats 2 in of floor area around the perimeter of the house, and needs deeper window jamb extensions. Against that, it is the cheapest R you will ever buy and in most of the country the energy code has already made the choice for you. Interior partitions stay 2x4 unless they are carrying plumbing, in which case a 2x6 wet wall saves you notching a stack through a 3 1/2 in stud.

California corner or a traditional three-stud corner

A traditional corner packs three studs into the corner to give the intersecting wall something to nail drywall to, and it fills the corner cavity solid with wood that insulates at about R-1 per inch instead of insulation that does better. A California corner uses one extra stud turned flat or set in from the corner, still gives full drywall backing, and leaves the cavity open so insulation can go in from the side before it is closed. It saves a stud per corner and it is the single easiest energy detail in the whole wall. Use three-stud corners when the drywaller insists, when the corner is carrying something unusual, or when you are matching existing framing on a remodel.

Precut studs or cutting your own from 8 ft stock

A 92 5/8 precut is the right length for an 8 ft wall with a double top plate and it costs about the same as an 8 ft stud. Cutting your own from 96 in stock means a saw cut on every stud, a pile of 3 3/8 in offcuts, and the risk of a wall a quarter inch out of level because the cuts drifted. Buy precuts whenever the wall is a standard height. Cut your own when the height is not standard, when you are building a knee wall or a soffit, or when the yard is out of precuts and you need the wall today. Note that a single top plate changes the arithmetic, so a precut in a single-plate wall gives 95 5/8 in of framed height rather than 97 1/8.

Single or double top plate

The double top plate is the default and it earns its keep: the cap plate laps every joint in the plate below, ties intersecting walls together, and lets the joists and rafters above land anywhere rather than only over a stud. A single top plate saves a stick of lumber per wall and 1 1/2 in of height, and the code allows it, but only where the framing above bears within 5 in of a stud and the joints are tied with an approved metal plate. In practice that means every joist and every rafter has to stack over a stud, which is a real design constraint on the whole building rather than a choice you make at the wall. If you have to ask, use two.

Where to put the openings before you commit

Sliding a rough opening a few inches along the wall can change how many layout studs it displaces, and moving a window so one of its kings lands on an existing layout mark is free. It also matters for the sheathing: a joint that lands in the middle of a window head is a crack waiting to happen, and it is easier to shift the opening on paper than to add blocking later. Type a position into an opening and watch the elevation and the stud count move. That is the drawing earning its place rather than decorating the page.

Ladder blocking instead of a tee

Where a partition meets an exterior wall, the traditional detail is two extra studs in the exterior wall making a nailing pocket. The alternative is a ladder: short blocks of 2x4 laid flat between two existing studs, giving the same drywall backing while leaving the cavity open for insulation and using a fraction of the wood. It costs a few minutes and one offcut per block. Count the intersection as a tee in this tool if you are framing it the traditional way, and leave the count at zero if you are laddering it, then add the blocks to the blocking row.

Common mistakes, and the fix

• × Marking the first stud at 16 in instead of 15 1/4 in.

  ✓ The 3/4 in difference is half a stud, and it is the whole point of the layout. Marking 15 1/4 and setting the stud on the far side of the mark puts the center at 16 in, which puts the 96 in edge of the first sheet on the center of a stud with half of it left over for the next sheet. Mark at 16 and every sheet edge on the wall lands in mid air.

• × Counting studs with length over spacing plus one and calling it done.

  ✓ That formula describes a blank wall. Every opening removes full-height studs and adds kings, jacks, a header, cripples and sometimes a sill, and the two effects do not cancel. On a 24 ft garage wall the formula says nineteen studs and the real answer is nineteen for a completely different reason: twelve came out and twelve went back in a different shape.

• × Forgetting that a jack stud is a different stick from the king.

  ✓ The king runs full height on the outside and the jack is cut to the header height and nailed to its face on the inside. Both are needed at every side of every opening, and past 72 in the jacks double. The most common framing mistake on a first wall is standing it up, finding the header sitting on nothing, and taking it apart again.

• × Letting a plate joint land between two studs.

  ✓ Every joint in a plate has to break over a stud, and the cap plate has to lap the joint below it by at least 24 in per IRC R602.3.2. Plan the plate cuts before you nail: pick a stock length that gets the joint near a layout mark, and stagger the two top plates deliberately rather than discovering the problem when the second plate lands.

• × Putting an untreated bottom plate on a concrete slab.

  ✓ IRC R317.1 requires pressure-treated lumber wherever the plate rests on concrete or masonry in contact with the ground, and a plain SPF plate on a basement slab will wick moisture and rot from the bottom up. Use PT, use a sill gasket or capillary break under it, and use hot-dip galvanized or stainless fasteners because the modern treatment chemistry eats plain steel.

• × Buying exactly the number of studs the calculator prints.

  ✓ Sight down every stud before it goes in and pull the crowned, bowed, twisted and split ones. Ten percent of a lift of framing lumber is not straight enough for a wall you are going to drywall, and the cull allowance in this tool never drops below two sticks for the same reason. Crown the rest and put every crown up in the same direction.

• × Buying 8 ft studs to build an 8 ft ceiling.

  ✓ A 96 in stud plus a bottom plate and two top plates is 100 1/2 in, which is 8 ft 4 1/2 in of framed height and half a sheet of drywall too tall. The precut exists for this: 92 5/8 plus the three plates is 97 1/8 in, which is 8 ft 1 1/8 in and exactly what two 48 in sheets and a drywalled ceiling want.

• × Subtracting every window from the sheathing to save a sheet or two.

  ✓ The offcuts you cut out of the sheets around a window are the waste, not a saving. Leave anything smaller than a full 32 sq ft sheet in the area and only take out the genuinely large holes, which in a house means a garage door and occasionally a slider. Ordering sheathing net of every opening is how a job runs a sheet short on a Sunday.

Material and unit specifics

Stud grade and No. 2, and why they sit in different piles

Stud grade is a grading category written specifically for vertical members in a wall: it allows knots and wane that would fail a joist but limits the warp that matters when you are trying to hang drywall on it. No. 2 is the general structural grade and is what headers, plates and anything spanning should be. In practice a yard sells 92 5/8 precuts as stud grade and long 2x4 and 2x6 as No. 2, and a header wants the No. 2. Do not put a stud-grade stick in a header because it was the right length.

SPF, Douglas fir and southern yellow pine

SPF, spruce-pine-fir, is the light, pale, cheap framing lumber that most of the northern and central United States builds with. Douglas fir is heavier, denser and noticeably stiffer, is the norm on the west coast, and carries longer spans for the same size. Southern yellow pine is dense, holds a nail hard and dominates the southeast. They are not interchangeable in a span table: the same 2x10 header carries different loads in each species, which is one more reason the header table on this page is orientation and not a size.

Precut lengths, and why 92 5/8

The three precuts are 92 5/8 for an 8 ft wall, 104 5/8 for a 9 ft wall and 116 5/8 for a 10 ft wall. Each is its nominal height less 3 3/8 in, which is the height of three 1 1/2 in plates less an eighth. Add the plates back and an 8 ft wall frames at 97 1/8 in. That inch and an eighth of slack is deliberate: two 48 in sheets of drywall stacked is 96 in, the ceiling drywall eats half an inch, and the rest is the gap you need at the floor to stand the sheet without scraping it.

Pressure-treated plates and the fasteners that go with them

IRC R317.1 lists where treated lumber is required, and the one every wall hits is a plate resting on concrete or masonry in contact with the ground. Modern treatments are copper based and corrode plain steel and standard galvanized fasteners fast, so anything touching a treated plate needs to be hot-dip galvanized, stainless, or rated for the treatment by its maker. Treated plates also come wet and heavy from the yard and will shrink as they dry, so nail them off properly rather than tacking them.

7/16 OSB and what structural sheathing does

Seven sixteenths OSB is the standard wall sheathing across most of the country, sold in 4 by 8 sheets covering 32 sq ft. Its job is not weather, it is racking resistance: the sheet turns a wall of hinged sticks into a panel that will not parallelogram in the wind. That is why the nailing schedule matters more than the thickness, and why an unsheathed wall needs let-in bracing or a rated portal frame instead. House wrap and cladding go on top of it and belong on the siding calculator, not here.

16d and 8d, and how many are in a pound

A 16d common is 3 1/2 in long and is the framing nail: two through the plate into the end of each stud, and one every 16 in stitching the two top plates together. There are roughly 49 of them to the pound, so a 5 lb box is about 245 nails and a 50 lb box is a house. An 8d common is 2 1/2 in and is the sheathing nail, roughly 68 to the pound, driven at 6 in around the edges of each sheet and 12 in through the field, which is about 60 nails a sheet. Sinkers and gun nails weigh slightly less per nail than commons, so treat the count as the real figure and the weight as the estimate.

Rough opening, and why it is not the door size

The rough opening is the hole in the framing, measured jack to jack and from the subfloor to the underside of the header. A prehung interior door needs about 2 in more than its nominal width and about 2 1/2 in more than its height, so a 36 in door is a 38 by 82 1/2 rough opening. Windows publish their own rough opening in the spec sheet and it is not derivable from the glass size, so read the sheet for the exact unit you bought before you frame anything.

Blocking, fireblocking and backing

Blocking is a horizontal row of offcuts between studs, and it does three different jobs that get confused. Fireblocking is required by IRC R302.11 at 10 ft intervals in a concealed vertical cavity, which for a normal wall means only at the plates but for a tall wall means a real extra row. Backing is blocking put in specifically so something can be screwed to it later: a grab bar, a TV mount, upper cabinets, a handrail. Blocking is also used flat between studs as a ladder where a partition meets a wall. Put backing in now, at a height you write down, because finding it later means a stud finder and hope.

Metal studs, and why this page counts wood

Steel studs are counted the same way on the layout, at 16 or 24 in on center, and the layout arithmetic here transfers directly. Everything else differs: they come in 25, 20 and 18 gauge, they run in a track rather than on plates, openings are framed with boxed headers or a header track rather than kings and jacks, and they are screwed rather than nailed. For a non-load-bearing interior partition they are cheap, dead straight and completely immune to termites and moisture, which is why commercial work uses almost nothing else. This tool models wood framing, so use the stud count and ignore the plates, headers and nails.

Reading your result

The headline number is the studs you actually buy, cull allowance included. Beside it sits the naive count, which is what you get by adding every member up as its own stick without noticing that the opening removed some and that the short pieces come out of stock, and the gap between the two is the honest saving. On a blank wall the two numbers are the same, which is the correct answer for a blank wall. The cut plan under it is worth reading rather than skipping: it lists every stick, what comes out of it, and how much is left, and it marks which sticks the openings freed. Where it shows extra sticks bought, the reason is usually a sill or a run of low cripples that is too long to share a stud with a jack, and moving a window up or down a few inches sometimes removes one. The plate line names the stock length that wastes least across all your walls, which on a room full of 12 ft walls is usually 12 ft rather than the 16 ft everybody reaches for. The header line counts material only. It shows a prescriptive span for orientation so you can see whether your opening is nowhere near the limit or uncomfortably close to it, and on a garage-width opening it stops and tells you to get the beam specified, because that is a structural decision and not an estimate. The cost is a planning ledger with editable defaults, so the number that means anything is the cost per linear foot of wall after you have typed in your own prices.

Limitations

• This is an estimating tool, not an engineering service. It counts the material for a header you specify and shows prescriptive spans for orientation. It never sizes a beam, never computes a load, and it is not a substitute for the span tables your jurisdiction adopted or for the building department that reads them.
• Anything past the prescriptive tables needs a design professional. Garage openings, long spans, point loads from a beam or a girder truss above, tall walls and anything carrying more than roof and ceiling plus one floor are all out of scope here and the tool says so on the opening rather than guessing.
• There is no wind, seismic or shear wall design in this page. Braced wall panels, portal frames, hold-downs and let-in bracing are all real requirements in real jurisdictions and none of them is counted here. Sheathing is counted as a quantity of sheets, not as a rated shear assembly.
• Gable ends, raked walls and any wall with a sloping top plate are not covered in this version, and neither is ceiling or floor framing. A gable needs studs cut to a run of different lengths and that is a different calculation. Floor framing and joist layout belong on the deck calculator.
• Plate joints are counted, not placed. The tool tells you how many sticks the runs take and assumes you can use a drop on another run, which is normal practice, but it does not decide where each joint lands. You still have to break them over studs and lap the cap plate by at least 24 in.
• Openings are laid out evenly along the wall unless you type a position. That is a drawing convention, and it affects how many layout studs an opening displaces. Type the real position if you know it, because on a wall where an opening sits near a layout mark the difference is a stud either way.
• Prices are typical US retail defaults for planning, and framing lumber moves more than any other common material. Every price is an editable field for exactly that reason, and none of the figures here is a quote, an offer or a guarantee of availability.
• This page counts the wood skeleton and its sheathing. The drywall on the room face is on the drywall calculator, the batts in the cavity are on the insulation calculator, the wrap and cladding outside are on the siding calculator, and board foot and MBF conversion of the lumber list is on the board foot calculator.

Frequently asked questions

How many studs do I need for a 12 ft wall?

At 16 in on center, a blank 12 ft wall takes 10 studs: one flush at each end and eight on the marks at 16, 32, 48, 64, 80, 96, 112 and 128 inches. Buy 12 to allow for culls. A 16 ft wall is 13 on the layout and 15 bought, a 20 ft wall is 16 and 18, and a 24 ft wall is 19 and 21. At 24 in on center those four walls are 7, 9, 11 and 13 on the layout. Add a stud for each California corner, two for each traditional corner and two for each wall teeing in, then account for the openings, which both remove full-height studs and add kings, jacks and cripples.

How far apart are studs?

Studs are almost always 16 inches apart on center in United States housing, which means 16 inches from the center of one stud to the center of the next, leaving a bay of 14 1/2 inches between them. Twenty four inches on center is the other common spacing, used in advanced framing and in many garages and outbuildings, and 19.2 inches exists on your tape measure because it puts five bays in an 8 ft sheet. If you are trying to find a stud in a finished wall rather than build one, start at a corner or an electrical box, since outlets and switches are nailed to the side of a stud, then measure 16 inches along and check with a stud finder or a small finish nail in a spot the trim will cover.

What length is a precut stud, and why is it not 8 feet?

A precut stud for an 8 ft wall is 92 5/8 inches. Add a 1 1/2 inch bottom plate and two 1 1/2 inch top plates and the wall frames at 97 1/8 inches, which is 8 ft 1 1/8 in. That extra inch and an eighth is what lets two 48 inch sheets of drywall stack on the wall after the ceiling has been drywalled, with a gap at the floor so the bottom sheet can be lifted into place. The 9 ft precut is 104 5/8 and the 10 ft precut is 116 5/8, both following the same arithmetic. Buying 96 inch studs for an 8 ft ceiling gives you a wall 8 ft 4 1/2 in tall and a drywall problem.

How many 2x4s do I need to frame a 12 x 12 room?

About 58 studs plus 12 sticks of plate stock, for four 12 ft walls at 16 inches on center with a door in one wall and a window in another. That breaks down as 40 layout studs, less the four the two openings displace, plus four corner studs with each corner assigned to one wall, plus four kings, plus the sticks the jacks, cripples and sills are cut from, plus a cull allowance. The plates are three 12 ft runs per wall, so 144 linear feet, which is twelve 12 ft sticks with nothing left over or twelve 16 ft sticks with 4 ft left on each. At typical retail that room is around $409 in framing material, or $8.52 per linear foot of wall.

What is the difference between a king stud and a jack stud?

A king stud runs the full height of the wall, plate to plate, on the outside of an opening, and it is nailed off exactly like any other stud. A jack stud, also called a trimmer, is cut shorter and nailed to the inside face of the king, and the header sits on top of it. So the king ties the opening into the wall and the jack carries the header down to the bottom plate. A cripple is any stud cut short because something is in its way: the short studs above a header and the ones below a window sill are both cripples. Every opening needs two kings and at least two jacks, and past a 72 inch rough opening the jacks double up to two each side.

Do I need a double top plate?

Almost always, yes, and it is the default here. The second plate laps every joint in the first, ties intersecting walls together, and lets joists and rafters land anywhere along the wall rather than only directly over a stud. The IRC does allow a single top plate, but only where the framing above bears within 5 inches of a stud and the joints are tied with an approved metal plate, which in practice means the entire building above has to be stacked over the studs. A single plate saves one stick of lumber per wall and 1 1/2 inches of height. If you have to ask the question, use two.

What size header do I need over a door or window?

That is a question for your building department, and this tool will not answer it. What it does is count the material for the header you choose and show you where your opening sits against typical prescriptive spans, so you can see whether you are nowhere near the limit or uncomfortably close. The governing document is IRC Table R602.7 as adopted and amended locally, and the answer depends on the species and grade of the lumber, the snow load, the width of the building and what is above the wall. In a non-bearing interior partition there is no span requirement at all and a flat 2x4 is enough. In a bearing wall at garage widths you need an engineered beam specified by a professional.

How much does it cost to frame a wall?

In materials, roughly $8 to $14 per linear foot of wall at typical 2026 US retail, depending on what is in it. A bare 2x4 interior partition with one door runs near $9 per foot, and a sheathed 2x6 exterior wall with a garage header and OSB is closer to $13. That is lumber, plates, headers, sheathing and nails only. Framing labor is a separate market and generally runs several times the material cost for a small job, because the setup, the layout and the trip are the same whether the wall is 8 ft or 24. Every price in the ledger on this page is editable, and framing lumber moves enough that you should type in your own before you trust a total.

Do studs go on 16 inch centers from the corner or from the mark?

From the end of the wall, which is why the first mark is at 15 1/4 inches rather than 16. The end stud sits flush with the end of the wall, so its center is 3/4 of an inch in. Marking 15 1/4 and setting the next stud on the far side of the mark puts that stud's center at exactly 16 inches from the end of the wall, and every stud after it lands on a true 16 inch center. The payoff is that the 96 inch edge of the first sheet of plywood, OSB or drywall lands on the center of a stud with half of it left to catch the next sheet.

How many cripple studs go above a header?

Enough to carry the layout across the opening, which is the rough opening width divided by the stud spacing, rounded up, less one, and never fewer than one. A 38 inch opening at 16 inch spacing takes two cripples, and a 192 inch garage opening takes eleven. If the header is deep enough to reach the underside of the top plate there are no cripples at all, which is common with a 2x12 header in an 8 ft wall. A window also gets the same number of cripples below the sill, running from the bottom plate up to the underside of the doubled sill.