II you only need to pick up an inch or so you can usually get away with engineered lumber - sometimes you can pick up Microlam cutoffs at the lumber yard for almost nothing.
If you need to go with less depth ("height ") you can have someone make you a flitch plate, a piece of steel plate to be sandwiched and through bolted between two pieces of 2xX" lumber and shimmed out to the wall thickness:
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Around here we typically use 1/8" plate - typically WAY overkill for door headers, but that's what the local steel fabricator has handy - if you go the flitch beam route make sure you have them punch the bolt holes for you, saves a lot of time and drill bits. :thumbup:
If you need to go with even less depth, use 1/4" plate.
The illustration above shows the bolt heads and nuts above the surface of the wood, for your applications you want to size the bolts by length so that they fit into counter sinks ( sized to accept the washers) in the wood and sitting below the surface.
In either case you need to have someone who knows what they're doing specify the depth/material of the engineered lumber or flitch plate depending on the application.
If you need to go with less depth ("height ") you can have someone make you a flitch plate, a piece of steel plate to be sandwiched and through bolted between two pieces of 2xX" lumber and shimmed out to the wall thickness:
Around here we typically use 1/8" plate - typically WAY overkill for door headers, but that's what the local steel fabricator has handy - if you go the flitch beam route make sure you have them punch the bolt holes for you, saves a lot of time and drill bits. :thumbup:
If you need to go with even less depth, use 1/4" plate.
The illustration above shows the bolt heads and nuts above the surface of the wood, for your applications you want to size the bolts by length so that they fit into counter sinks ( sized to accept the washers) in the wood and sitting below the surface.
In either case you need to have someone who knows what they're doing specify the depth/material of the engineered lumber or flitch plate depending on the application.
