Steel Beams / Load Bearing Walls

We removed the load-bearing wall between our rear parlor room and the small side room to extend the former across the width of the house. The steel beam that replaced the wall sits in a pocket in the exterior rear wall at one end and atop a steel lally post at the other. The post goes down two floors (parlor and lower ground floors) and into the cellar where it is embedded in a concrete footing. The only issue we had was that our bathroom floor tiles cracked. With hindsight, we laid that floor too soon after installation of the new beam and should have allowed a few months for settling. You MUST hire a structural engineer for this kind of project.

NeoGrec

in Renovation 7 years and 6 months ago

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shesabrickhouse

in Renovation 7 years and 7 months ago

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Hi all – We are thinking of replacing a couple of load bearing walls with steel beams on our parlor and garden levels, to open the place up. The building was built in 1910 and hasn’t had much structural work since. I would love to hear from others who have gone through this process. We are particularly interested in thoughts on feasibility, costs and contractor/architect recs. We are not planning to do a gut reno, and I would like to know if it possible/affordable (hah!) to do this without tearing the place apart. Thank you!!

Lurker | 7 years and 7 months ago

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We did. There’s a bunch of ways to do it. Our place is 20′ wide with joists that span the entire length and a load-bearing wall ~7 in from one side. When we removed it they ended up making a T with the top of the t running between party walls and tucked into the joist bay and notched into the brick on both sides, the other hanging below and then we boxed that in. It would have been pretty easy and better to simply have them cut the joists and have them connect to the beam on either side, which we did in the basement.

One thing to take into consideration is how your plumbing and electrical currently run in those walls. There’s ways to reroute and so forth but you have to plan ahead.

Guest User | 7 years and 7 months ago

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I am the neighbor of a house that did this. My third floor ceilings are cracking and third floor door frames are slightly out of sink with the doors, all of the sudden. A crack has appeared in my ground floor from front door to back door, again all of the sudden. A marble rolled on the floor goes toward their house. Could this be do to their removal of support beams?

Guest User | 7 years and 7 months ago

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I Highly recommend that you contact an engineer to evaluate the slant, beams are structural because they carry the weight of the house. The main beams have supporting walls through out – event though there are variables, size, width , height etc. An engineer can assess the damage if any caused by the improper removal of beams.. It is critical to have the right people do this type of work, it is costly but also risky if the wrong people do it. This is one of the challenges of being attached. Good Luck.

Guest User | 7 years and 7 months ago

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We looked into this – talk to Craig Hofheimer (http://www.craighofheimer.com/) NOTE he is a “designer” not an Architect but can talk you through the process and connect you with engineers / permitting folks which you really need to do. Typically steel beams come in 20′ lengths, so simplest/cheapest is if you install a footing down to your foundation/basement at the front, and back of house, with another (or 2?) in the middle of the space. So this will be tough to do without substantial demo but I’m sure you know that. Also re contractors talk to Silvio at CNS construction (http://www.cnsconstructionny.com/).

CarmenR | 7 years and 6 months ago

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We did this during the course of our major reno. I have no idea how you would do this without some substantial demo, but our entire house was sunken in the middle to the tune of well over 1.5 inches on the top floor. Our “foundation” was basically just sitting on dirt. We put in 4 columns with concrete footings in the cellar, and they run all the way to the top floor. One steel beam runs front-to-back. Our house is almost 21″ wide and the joists were so deflected that it didn’t make sense to try to avoid running the main beam.

It was expensive but it’ll keep the house standing another 160 years!