What size wood beam is needed to replace a load bearing wall?

Question

What size wood beam is needed to replace load bearing wall?
I would like to remove a load bearing wall in the basement of my two story house. Cut 2x10 floor joists are now supported by this wall. On one side, the room area is 138sqft (2x10's are 10'10'' long), on the other, the room area is 96sqft (2x10's are 7'6" long). The unsupported span of the beam will be 10'8". What size LVL or Parallam do I need?. What is the best way to support the ceiling during wall removal and beam installation? Is there something I can rent to avoid building temporary walls?

Thanks!

Answer 1

My browser crashed 3/4 of the way through my answer. Sorry, I'm not going to rewrite it. But you can go to page 16 on Weyerhaeuser's brochure for beams to see that a 3 1/2" by 11 1/4" 2.0E Parallam PSL beam will work:

http://www.ilevel.com/literature/TJ-9000.pdf

The 4x4 posts on each end should not be in direct contact with the cement floor. I would use a post base by Simpson Strongtie:

http://www.strongtie.com/ftp/catalogs/C-2006/C-2006-p046.pdf

I would build temporary walls.

Answer 2

dogger, If you surf any web sites with similar forums or questions, they will all wind up saying the same thing---especially those sites where experts moderate the sites. You should have an engineer or expert come and look at your project. There are host of other factors beyond just how thick the beam should be. You have point load, floor support, and floor weight to be considered. You may be able to contact your country building inspectors and they can come out and give you some advice. But since your house was built in '57, that's codes that are 52 years old. Lots have changed since then. I simply wouldn't trust anyone to give me a good calculation, because they can't inspect your site and see if other factors need to be included in the equation. The last thing you want to do is have to repair a sagging beam that doesn't bear the load properly. good luck

Answer 3

I don't understand all that you are saying but we did have to replace a beam in our basement and we used a steel beam. Also we used the house jacks that have metal posts that hold the floor while placing the beam in place...there were two, one on each side that we also used some wood to brace and hold the floor with while moving and replacing the beam. We had some movement inside the house, it was a little crooked over time, the house was built in the 20's. so, we had a couple of cracks in the drywall but, the house is more level and more stable now. You really need a couple of strong, knowing men around to give you a hand and advise you if you aren't going with an engineer...we didn't that's for sure, it was my husband and brother but they both have done a lot of remodeling and building. good luck.

Answer 4

Use a steel beam and then frame around the beam so that it looks asthetically like it is wood. However, Since you are asking these questions I suggest that you not do this work yourself as you could cause some major structural changes in your home and my guess is you don't know your specific building codes.

Answer 5

use 4'' x 6'' dimension of good lumber, add braces near the columns. and while demolishing the LBW put a temp beam and shoring jack (or lumber 4'' x 4'' ) near the support.