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Altering main support beamFrom: kharma@sympatico.ca
Category: Structural
Remote Name: 209.226.249.149
Date: 22 Jul 2002
Time: 07:39 PM
CommentsI would like to know if the following modification is structurally sound. Here is some background info first.
My house is a 32'x24' open concept bungalo with two mainfloor bedrooms and 1 bath. The rest of the mainfloor is one open room containing the kitchen, livingroom, diningroom.
The roof is a 4/12 pitch with two layers of shingles (needs replacing in a year or two, and I will strip it down, and have one layer again). The roof trusses are supported on the exterior walls only. The house has vinyl siding on all sides.
The flooring is one layer of 5/8" tongue and groove covered by 1" solid pine. The joists are 2x8 on 16" centers, and rest on a 32' wood beam comprised of 4 2x10" with a single 2x8 laid flat on top making it effectively 11-1/4" "real" inches. This is then supported by 3 cinderblock pillers. The basement walls are also cinderblock construction.
I would like to modify the support structure to make it as open as possible. I want to remove the top 2x8" sill plate in order to gain that headroom, and replace the block pillers with a single jackpost (offcenter if possible).
A great concern is that the original builder (est. around 1968), notched the beam on top of each post(check the link at the end for the picture).
My questions are:
Can I remove the sill plate, use the remaining 2x10 contruction and get away with one jackpost, bearing in mind that there are 3 notches in the bottom 3rd of the main beam?
If not, can I replace the beam with steel or paralam (preferably in two pieces for ease of handling), and one jackpost? I still would like to gain headroom, so which product can be "shallower"?
Here is the picture of the notch on post, if you need more pictures let me know.
http://members.rogers.com/maidenthebasementstudio2/postbeam.jpg
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