Span 30' with a steel I beam?

Badfish740

I'm interested in using a steel I beam for the main support beam(s) in my yet to be constructed project. When my father built our log home he was lucky enough to come across some very heavy duty steel beams for free. His cousin was the GC on our house and had demo'ed a commercial building a few years before and had salvaged some of the structural steel and hung onto it. The beam currently supports the length of our entire house (32 feet) with one support column made from some extremely heavy box channel from the same demo job in the center. Needless to say, if there's any sag after 23 years, it's a tiny fraction of an inch. The dimensions of the beam are:

Top/bottom flange - 6"
Height - 8"
Flange thickness 5/16"

Its pretty heavy duty, but I was wondering if I could get a beam heavy enough to span 30' with no support columns in order to allow for a more open plan when finishing the basement? This would be for a Cape Cod with a fully finished upstairs with a shed dormer on the back and doghouse dormers up front. Would it be too cumbersome to handle or so large that it would interfere with headroom? What about cost? As far as I know, structural steel is going for about $0.40 a pound, so even if I needed two beams at 1000 pounds each I'd be spending $800 not counting delivery. I figure that's a small price to pay for not having any columns in your basement.

AtlanticWBConst.

Hi,

When you span an area with any kind of structural beam; the wider the span, the wider the width of the beam, so, inevitably, you will always loose some headspace. A 30' span will definitely create a loss of headspace, especially so in a basement location.

I have a link to a company that we have done business with (used their steel structural beams) They fabricate beams that a 'square shaped' and hollow in the middle. This allows them to use less width to create higher deflective strengths = beams that save on 'headspace'.

They have an engineering dept. that you can contact by phone to discuss your design requirements with. Generally, companies are eager to help customers figure their structural needs out....and very few companys will charge you for the actual engineering services required, as long as you end up purchasing the beam from them.
FWIW - We found their pricing surprisingly very reasonable.

LINKS:

Beam information:

http://www.metwood.com/products/truSPAN


Picture of one of their beams for spanning:

http://www.metwood.com/gallery


Here is a link to the phone number for their engineering dept:

http://www.metwood.com/services

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- Build Well -

Badfish740

Wow, exactly what I was looking for. Thanks! I'll certainly be bouncing some ideas off of them in the near future.

robertcdf

I seen one span a 3 car garage... It was 14.5" WIDE! and I think it was roughly 14-16" DEEP. It held a floor and a roof above it.

So yes it can be done... But they are some hefty beasts.

But what Atlantic is linking looks like a better solution.

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