Actually laminated beams are pretty good. Its tasndrad mdoel aircraft [practice to run a thin strip of carbon fiber each side of a balsa strip to make one..glued on. Pretty good until the compression buckles the bea,m, but it wont snap, and it stiffens it a LOT. a single layer of glass tape, top and mostly bottom, plus resin, on a beam might well work in a full size situation
He didn't like the beam just because I admitted that I made it. It's 6050x400x100mm. It consists of 8 pieces of 100x50 Douglas Fir joined with some fancy glue that was recommended (a red powder that is mixed with water as needed). I made it on a concrete floor with lots of clamps. I put a curve in it assuming that it would go flat when in place. I can't remember how much I curved it but my guess was correct. Since I couldn't get timber long enough I had to have staggered joins. A mistake that I made was to cut the joins at 45 degrees, because that's all the dropsaw would cut. However I should have made the effort to cut a very much sharper angle. The other mistake I made was to believe what the glue manufacturer said about its gap filling ability. You need about twice as much glue as it says on the packet. And next time I will neatly round the edges of the beam to look like it was made in a factory. Then the building inspector won't make me pay for an engineer to come on site and prove it won't collapse. He said that the roof was holding up the beam anyway and he could have designed a roof without a beam. It's an upside down W shape.
I built it downstairs where I had a floor. Then half a dozen people carried it upstairs. I'd recommend building a beam close to where it will be used!
That's the issue. BCO's are not structural engineers. They are pretty good, but not that good. Basically when faced with something outside their tables of recommendations, they have to cover their arses by getting it OKed by someone who does understand the tricky maths.
Which is how I got single glazing past mine. a bulky tome from some heating engineers showing that overall, my house met heat loss standards.
There are plenty of grand pianos in first floor flats. Not sure about concert grands, but certainly the middle size.
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