Steel Beam in Basement

Heinz

I am building an addition (upstairs and downstairs) on to my split foyer house. I have flush cut and removed the concrete wall separating the two basements. A steel beam will be added to replace the wall, and it will T into the existing 6w21 backbone beam. The architect has specified a 27 ft. 8w31 beam with three 4 in posts. He and the steel company have also specified the appropriate plates and connecting brackets which will be welded together.
The non-adjustable posts will sit on the flush cut concrete wall (which is in excellent condition and supported by a footing) and they will be shimmed and bolted down. How do I find out information about how to grout around the floor plates of the posts.

Bob Kovacs

Just buy a back of non-shrink grout and pack it under the baseplates to fill the voids. You'll likely need to go to an industrial supplier that services contractors to find it.

Material Tester

As much as I dont like to push the services of Home depot, they do have the material you are looking for.

They have a Quikrete non shrink grout for about $12.00 a 60 lb bag and also a rapid set non shrink grout for $19.00 for a 50lb bag. The rapid set is a great product, I use it to do structural patching in small areas, but sets up in about 10 minutes which will make the hand work necessary for infilling base plates hard to keep up with.

As far as how to do the work, Bob is right you need to fill in all the voids. Normally this is accomplished with a sawing motion from a strap like steel strapping or a thin piece of steel or the like. The type of material for the piece is not important it just needs to be thin so you can densify and remove all the voids from under the plate. Also it is normally best to keep the material hand workable and not flowable so you can PACK it in the area.