I Beam for structural support

[crazyal]

32'X W18X50# ? That must have taken at least two of you to put it up

I removed the bucket from my backhoe and was able to just barely lift it high enough.

 

[shibaura_4043]

Just throwing this out there for a comparison. I have an i-beam supporting the second floor of my garage/ shop. It's 32' but has a 4"x4" post a couple of inches in on each end. I had a choice of using a w18x 55 or w21x50. The roof is trusses so the only weight is the load from the second floor. I went with the w21 since it was cheaper, had less deflection under the same load, and the loss of 3" under the beam wasn't an issue for me. I don't remember what weight was used for a floor load.

If you get it wrong then you could be starting all over again (unless you are under it when it fails). If you don't want to deal with an engineer then I oversize it by quite a bit and deal with getting it into place. I was able to use my backhoe but if I couldn't then I was going to use staging on each end and jacks and blocking to get it into place.

what else was done to secure the beam? I could be way off here but I would think the second floor load would be more than my wood framed metal roof? Is the beam exposed? Do u have any pics of the beam installed?

 

[crazyal]

what else was done to secure the beam? I could be way off here but I would think the second floor load would be more than my wood framed metal roof? Is the beam exposed? Do u have any pics of the beam installed?

The 4x4 posts are welded to the i-bean and are sitting on some 3/4" 10x 10 plates mounted to the floor. Because of how I have the second floor mounted to it and the 3/4" flooring nailed and glued down creating a giant square there's no way it can move side to side or front to back. These are the only pictures I have.

 

[shibaura_4043]

thanks for the pics crazyal... nice set up u got there!

 

[Shield Arc]

Your still the smartest man in Seattle in my book

Not even close! I'm in the bottom 1%.



Never had much dealings with Lake Union. Did a small project just east of the hwy 99 bridge on the north end of the lake years ago. Drove 8 or 10 steel pipe piles, and welded beams on them so a straddle
carrier could walk out over the lake and pick up boats and take them back to the beach to be worked on. Now the Seattle water front, or Harbor Island pick anyone of those docks.

 

[LD1]

Just throwing this out there for a comparison. I have an i-beam supporting the second floor of my garage/ shop. It's 32' but has a 4"x4" post a couple of inches in on each end. I had a choice of using a w18x 55 or w21x50. The roof is trusses so the only weight is the load from the second floor. I went with the w21 since it was cheaper, had less deflection under the same load, and the loss of 3" under the beam wasn't an issue for me. I don't remember what weight was used for a floor load.

If you get it wrong then you could be starting all over again (unless you are under it when it fails). If you don't want to deal with an engineer then I oversize it by quite a bit and deal with getting it into place. I was able to use my backhoe but if I couldn't then I was going to use staging on each end and jacks and blocking to get it into place.

w21x50 does seem a bit overkill. Did you do any calculations or did you just go BIG? How long are the joists on each side of the beam?? (I was going to figure a bit of things, and the beam is actually only carrying half the load of each joist. Thats why I was asking)

what else was done to secure the beam? I could be way off here but I would think the second floor load would be more than my wood framed metal roof? Is the beam exposed? Do u have any pics of the beam installed?

His floor may indeed have more load than your roof. The problem with your situation is that in concentrates the roof load onto only TWO points on the beam instead of being evenly distributed like floor joists. ANd without knowing all the variables for sure, Remember I metioned a 16x40 is what you would need. So yea, the beam he used would work in your case also.

 

[LD1]

w21x50 does seem a bit overkill. Did you do any calculations or did you just go BIG? How long are the joists on each side of the beam?? (I was going to figure a bit of things, and the beam is actually only carrying half the load of each joist. Thats why I was asking)

Beamboy didnt list a w21x50 beam so I went down one size to a w21x44, and given a 32' span, that beam would hold a distributed load of 1100lbs PER foot safely:thumbsup:

So now if you 1100lbs and divide by take HALF of the length of each floor joists comming into each side, (since the other half is supported by the walls of the building) that would give you a safe psf rating. Take about 10lbs off of that for the dead load.

 

[LD1]

w21x50 does seem a bit overkill. Did you do any calculations or did you just go BIG? How long are the joists on each side of the beam?? (I was going to figure a bit of things, and the beam is actually only carrying half the load of each joist. Thats why I was asking)

Beamboy didnt list a w21x50 beam so I went down one size to a w21x44, and given a 32' span, that beam would hold a distributed load of 1100lbs PER foot safely:thumbsup:

So now if you 1100lbs and divide by take HALF of the length of each floor joists comming into each side, (since the other half is supported by the walls of the building) that would give you a safe psf rating. Take about 10lbs off of that for the dead load.

Just guessing, but it looks like your buildign is 28' wide. And if thats the case, the beam is supporting 7' of joist to each side. Total of 14'. So 1100/14 would be about 80psf floor.

I guess it isnt too much overkill. When I did my upstairs, I used 2 w12x26 beams spanning 29'. But they are only supporting 5 ft of joist to each side and not rated for near the floor load.

 

[Rock knocker]

Don't be modest.

Two guys with stout step-ladders

 

[shibaura_4043]

His floor may indeed have more load than your roof. The problem with your situation is that in concentrates the roof load onto only TWO points on the beam instead of being evenly distributed like floor joists. ANd without knowing all the variables for sure, Remember I metioned a 16x40 is what you would need. So yea, the beam he used would work in your case also.[/QUOTE]

I can add as many vertical supports as necessary to evenly distribute the roof load couldn't I? Wouldnt that accomplish a similar effect of the floor joists against the beam? As far as the beam supports I planned on doing something comparable to crazyal's set up. Would it help if I upload a pic of my current set up with a drawing of what I plan to do? Its going to be a really rough drawing... but it will depict the basic idea of my approach.