Removing a pole from basement

[barry]

Bit of a flying-leap, concluding on conclusions, eh?

Might be better to lighten up. More fun.

J

[Bob]

The engineering part is not a DIY project, but if someone is handy, the actual replacement of the beam can be done with a little common sense, keeping safety in mind.

[trader4]

"20. Bob Jan 25, 2:14 pm show options

The engineering part is not a DIY project, but if someone is handy, the

actual replacement of the beam can be done with a little common sense, keeping safety in mind. "

Yes, I agree. The "this is not a DIY project" in my post was copied from a post I was replying to that wound up in the wrong place. It could at least partly be a DIY project.

[BP]

A web site for do it yourself structural engineering? No. LOL. I would think that a google search on "sizing steel beams" would net something useful. I can't imagine why a structural engineer would dissuade anyone from doing this type of job, unless there are extenuating circumstances you are neglecting to mention here, or don't understand. Normally, if the columns are not spaced more than 8 feet apart on a standard construction you can replace one column pretty easily. Two columns? That's a different story completely.

[Edwin Pawlowski]

The tricky part is getting the temporary supports in place while the present center beam is removed, then replaced. All that is really needed is a bunch of jacks and some 2 x 12's or whatever is now in place. In new construction, the beam would be lain in recesses made in the foundation. On a retrofit, it may be permissible to have piers build at the ends to carry the load.

Some years ago I helped my stepfather as he raised a floor from two adjoining rooms about 3 feet. Once in position, he took down the front of the brick house and rebuilt that also. This was a row house in Philadelphia ad it was being change from a store-front to a medical office. Neither is a job that I would tackle myself, but he did that sort of thing all the time.

[Dr. Noah Body]

The beam does not have to be removed. There is a lot of strength in those wood beams, why not use it. I did this exact thing in my basement and we used C channel rather than I Beams.

You put C channel on each side of the existng wood beam and bolt them together with 3/4 inch ready rod with the wood beam in between. You do this every foot or so. Make sure the beams are as high as they can go but do not try to force the C Channel up to contact the floor joists becaue when you release the force the C channel will just pull the floor joists away. Just sung it up there as best as you can. I had seven guys helping get these things in place so be prepared.

Then support each end of the C Channel with new teleposts. In my basement one telepost went right against the basement wall and the other right next to an existing telepost. In this manner the wood beam still holds up the house and the C channel holds up the wood beam and the added telepost hold up the C Channel. If your C channel does not extend below the wood beam the you can use an exiting telepost with a larger top plate.

I can't remember what size my wood beam was (4 or 5 ply) but using

2 C channel (30kg x 250mm)we were able to span 25 feet with a huge huge margin for safety.

We boxed eveything in, a little drywall, a little paint and I have a very nice open space.

Needless to say you need an engineer to calculate load and determine the size of C channel you need. The C Channel needs to be prepared in that the holes drilled for the ready rod need to be syncronised, that is they (the holes in each C channel) have to line up.

The way we did is was to put up one C channel and lag bolt it in place. Then we drilled half a dozen holes through the beam and pushed the ready rod through. The we lifted the other side up and pushed it onto the ready rod and bolted them together. We then removed the lag bolts drilled the rest of the holes and bolted it all together, put the new teleposts in place and set them up properly. Once we were convinced that it wouldn't fall down on our heads we removed the offending telepost.

Floor never drop a millimeter. In fact we were unable to detect any movement in the floor at all.

Hope this helps, even if it just get every one thinking of different ways to do things.

Matt

E-Mail to [e-mail] replace the -one- with the number

[Edwin Pawlowski]

Yes, it is a help. Your method sounds much easier that what I would have anticipated.

[mm]

It was just a thought. I'll pay attention to other townhouses under construction, but this one I won't be able to check out until it is torn down. It would take quite a big fire, to one of my neighbors, for that to happen in my lifetime.

(One I=beam is visible, and I see it go into the cinder block wall. It probably ends 5 inches later, and the other guys I beam would then start 2 inches beyond that, but I can't tell.

Remove NOPSAM to email me. Please let me know if you have posted also.

[anoldfart2]

There have been many replies. yet no one asked WHY you need to remove this post? Cant you work around it? For example, if you want a door there, change your plans. A door is only 32 inches wide on the average, so move the door over 32 inches or less if the post was near the edge of the door. If your beam is solid all the way across, you could likely put a post about 38 inches apart on BOTH sides of the door and remove the existing post, but it surely would be easier to just move the door. You should know that whenever you tamper with the house structure. you will get at least minimal plaster cracking and mis-fitting doors upstairs. If you dont do it right, the problems could be much worse, including cracked pipes, roof leaks around flashings, chimney cracking, and more.

Once again, consider all of this before even considering this post removal. I know all of this for fact because I used to rent a very old house and the wooden posts were rotting at the base and had sunk at least 5 inches over the years. The floor was very sagged in one part of the house and the basement stairs were at a noticable angle. The landlord brought over some vinyl for the kitchen and asked if we needed to have it installed, or if we could do it, and said if we did it carefully, he would deduct some rent money. I knew I could do it, and do it well, so I agreed. In the process, I decided to try to straighten out the floors a little. I went in the basement with some heavy duty bottle jacks and some oak 5x5 posts. Initially I raised the floor about 2 inches, and easily. Then the turning got tough. While doing it, one of the original posts fell over. Thats when I cut off the rotted end and put some solid concrete blocks under the post. After that, every day I gave the jacks a few turns, and soon the other post fell out, and I did the same as the other one. After that, I just added shims as it went up.

The problem while doing this, was the doors no longer closed above that part of the house, and I had to keep planing and sawing on them. The worst door had a noticable gap at the top, which I ended up raising the whole door and leaving a wider gap at the bottom. Along with this, there were lots of cracks that developed in the plaster. By the time I was done, I had to do some serious spackling, and replace a piece of the ceiling that was about 3 x5 feet, because the plaster was ready to fall.

When I finished, the sag in the middle of the floor was about 1 inch lower than the outside perimeter of the floor, the steps were darn near straight, and the floor no longer bounced. I was pleased, and so was the landlord, but I worked my butt off. The jacking was not so hard, but all the wall patching, door trimming, window adjustments and so on were a lot of work.

Of course, in this house it was almost a must, because the place was coming close to collapsing in the center.

But if your house is level now, do you really want to do all of this and cause cracks in walls and mis-fitting doors? Just to remove that post will require jacking the beam up at least 1/4", possibly more. Thats enough to strain the plaster and cause doors and windows to get stuck or not close. If you move the post a few feet away, you have to be almost 100% accurate to get the cement footing the exact same height at it was where the post came from.

Either way, you will still experience the cracking and at least a small amount of door issues.

There are ways around this, and that is why you need a professional. At the same time, no matter how careful you are, there will still be some cracks in the walls and door issues.

You wanted thoughts. These are mine !!!