Hello all, I have been glued to this forum after getting flooded from Issac and Id like to thank you all for your advice you share with others, I have learned alot over the last few weeks and am looking forward to learning much more over the coming months.
We got 4 feet of water throughout the house and so we have had to gut the thing and replace all appliances hvac, electrical yadda yadda. The local county has been amazing with respect to issuing permits and generally helping us out.
We figured if we have to rebuild then now is the time to make changes and two of those changes involve removing some load bearing walls. One wall is 15' and one is 12'. We have gotten the permit from the county based on using a 3-1/8 x 13-1/2 enigneered beam. The house was built in 1970 and does not have engineered trusses it is stick framed with the joists being 2 x6 that overlap each other in the middle for a foot or so. The beam would be under the overlapped part. There is only the roof above with no real attic space with the exception of crawling up there to adjust / fix wiring. The roof itself is a very low pitched roof.
The local lumberyard (that has been amazing giving us contractor prices etc) seems to think that we are over doing it using an engineered beam. The county says that we are fine and engineered is better than dimensional lumber. Im a nervous nelly when it comes to stuff like this but can you have too much beam? Am I overdoing it?
Thanks in advance
Robyn
We got 4 feet of water throughout the house and so we have had to gut the thing and replace all appliances hvac, electrical yadda yadda. The local county has been amazing with respect to issuing permits and generally helping us out.
We figured if we have to rebuild then now is the time to make changes and two of those changes involve removing some load bearing walls. One wall is 15' and one is 12'. We have gotten the permit from the county based on using a 3-1/8 x 13-1/2 enigneered beam. The house was built in 1970 and does not have engineered trusses it is stick framed with the joists being 2 x6 that overlap each other in the middle for a foot or so. The beam would be under the overlapped part. There is only the roof above with no real attic space with the exception of crawling up there to adjust / fix wiring. The roof itself is a very low pitched roof.
The local lumberyard (that has been amazing giving us contractor prices etc) seems to think that we are over doing it using an engineered beam. The county says that we are fine and engineered is better than dimensional lumber. Im a nervous nelly when it comes to stuff like this but can you have too much beam? Am I overdoing it?
Thanks in advance
Robyn