Ight so I'm wanting to remove a load bearing wall, the room is 18x25 the wall travels the 25ft, if I build two 8in thick walls, "to accommodate built ins" on each side say 28in or so and set a steel 12in I beam on it that would be more than adequate correct? No living space above it, no storage, no real snow concern. I would of course build a footer under each short wall. Pretty sure it's ontop of the sleeper as well. roof is a 2x6 rafter btw Other options sawmill solid beam LVL Engineered truss
I would think a microlam (like an engineered truss) would carry it. Most of my walls are load bearing thanks to a 1940’s era architect who just HAD to get creative with the roofline. I explored taking out a wall and the design people brought up a microlam. Just 8” tall from the ceiling down, and it was supposed to be able to handle it just like the wall did.
Micro lam beams carry a lot of weight. If you plan to cover it with wallboard it would probably be the most economical way to go. You could also use a glue lam beam if it is going to be exposed. They can be sanded and varnished to look really nice. Steel beams are expensive, even more so lately. Plus you have to do a lot of extra work getting it where you can fasten rafters to it and attach wallboard to it to cover up the steel. I spanned 19 ft. of load bearing wall on my house with a 3 x 12 glue lam beam 18 years ago. It hasn't sagged. It has a slight deflection if you jump on it, so if I had it to do over, I would have put a 5 x 12 beam instead. I didn't want it to show inside because I was enlarging a room. So I installed it flush on the bottom side with the bottom of the ceiling joists and hung the joists on the side of the beam with joist hangers.
We doubled the size of our master bedroom in MA by removing a structural wall that crossed the middle of it. We didn't want a beam to show, so we hung the ceiling joists from a beam placed in the storage space above the bedroom. As I recall, we used double 2' X 10" - or possibly 12" s. It worked fine.
No experience with steel. Quick check with wood beam calculator with NO snow load says over 17" depth for double lam and over 12" for quadruple...price compare 4 lams to steel. What's no "real" snow concern mean...whatever way you go, get a load calculation from wherever you source material...
Wife wanted "open concept" between dining and living/foyer. Was going to do it that way, but was able to convince her to let me bring opening down to cased 8'... which let me source a stocked HD beam and keep it below ceiling...way less work for me...just swing beams up from jack stud at one end...
I'll be working at the house tomorrow will take some pics then. And yea I figured a lam beam would hang to low, I like the idea of it being exposed, would dress it with sawmill board or shelving and stain. Exactly what I'm going for Dynaflow, just lift it up and keep on trucking
Is it load bearing because it is holding up all the roof beams (bottom chords) at one end? ie it runs perpendicular to the roof trusses? How far away are the other supports, or is it at one end of the building and only one of two? Plan to but in significant temporary supports before you pull down the wall and build the new one if it holds all the weight of one end of the roof.
Yep, too low with 8' ceiling and leaving double top plate, assuming 6'8" opening. Removing top plate buys you another 3"...should work with 4 lams. Don't know what correct steel would weigh, but "just lift" for pre-assembled 4 lams would be about 400#. With access to both sides of lams, you could put up 1 by 1 and screw together in place. You'd need lam maker's fastener spec/spacing sheet either way.
Gonna stop by a local place tomorrow, after talking to my landlord/contractor he said probably going to 3 12in LVL's hopefully that's all I need so I can rock and roll on it
Agree on the less work. We had to hump three 16' pieces of 2' X 10" or 12" through a second-floor window, then up through a pull-down staircase to get the beam into the attic. We then had to assemble it in the extremely hot attic crawlspace and install it. It was a major pain in the -ss, but in the end, worth it.
No second floor otherwise that was plan...with 4 12 pitch roof over work area, concerned wouldn't be able to rotate beams into attic... Used door hinge on king stud, lift one end, insert hinge pin, lift other end and place jack stud, replace hinge with second jack stud...one man job...
Went with a 12in steel, the engineer said I would need 2 18in lvl's , didn't ask about 12in but would obviously minimum of 3 maybe even 4 of them, $600, not to mention how thick it would be. My steel beam should be here tomorrow afternoon, looks like my weekend just got covered ha
My beam calculator said you needed 4-12 1/2" lvls with no snow load...steel was way to go...you're committed now...
Actually we did luck out. Access to the attic was by a 14" by 20" opening in a closet ceiling (filled with a hunk of plywood). We were having the dropdown staircase installed in the hall directly in front of what had been one of the bedroom doors. The hole for the staircase had been cut, but the staircase not installed. That gave us just barely enough room to get the lumber up into the attic/crawlspace. No way is it coming back out through the framed staircase now.
I'd knock out an access door in the gable, install however many beams you want then frame it out for a nice louvered vent for some extra ventilation. Just sayin'... ws
I know this probably will not work for your application but I spanned 32" with this set up and it was nearly free. Mobile home frame sandwiched with 2x10 on each side.The wood was more for a nailer than structural
...would've been b-plan for my project, but previously added 3-car turned 90 degrees to end (other end butts upper level) using trusses...
