Jacking a door way to install header

[Michael]

I bought a 2 story house a few years ago. There is an 11ft wide doorway on a load bearing wall that doesn't have a proper header. It has sagged about 1 1/8 inch. I need to jack it up. Build some temp walls. Remove the doorway and reinstall with a header. There is a 6x10 girder under the doorway.

I have a few questions. I was going to try to use a 20 ton bottle jack to lift the doorway. I have 2 jack poles as well. Is that jack likely big enough to do this job keeling in mind it is load bearing and a two story house? Also how much can I lift it per day without destroying the closet doorways upstairs that are immediately above it? They are already bound up from the sag. Last thing. I was going to use a double lvl header. Would that be OK or do I need a steel beam?

I've attached a few pictures of the doorway, a pic of the foundation under the doorway, and a picture of the upstairs doors.

[Snag]

I'd first make sure the vertical supports on both ends of your proposed beam have the capacity to bear the load . Then I'd jack the existing header up and build a temp support wall on both sides of the doorway to support the load while you're installing the beam . It looks like you've got enough headroom to use a laminated wood beam ... Which I might leave exposed, stained and varnished .

[Marilyn Manson]

If the closet doors are directly above the sag, how much load is actually above it? Just weight of the floor joists?

[hubops]

I'd love to see the existing structure for that 11 ft opening. Maybe the OP will undress it and post a few pics for us. My guess is a poorly home-made DIY laminated wood beam. If it was my home, I'd be calling in a trusted professional - to get it done safely and correctly. John T.

[Ed Pawlowski]

One big step is to determine what a proper header is. If it is larger than the present and reduces headroom you may want to go steel instead of laminated.

I have to wonder if the original owner may have removed a lolly column that was there by the original builder. My last house had a family room on the lower level that was originally designed to be a 2 car garage so it had a column in the center. I'd have to go to steel to take it out.

[Marilyn Manson]

On a lower level/garage, I can understand a lally column. Wide open space, big beam, lally columns on footers. Just like the OP shows in this picture.

On the first floor, between a dining room and living room, I'd expect a stud wall, not a lally column. DIY'ers and even contractors often remove structure (load bearing stud walls) to obtain an open floor plan and don't always compensate for what they took out.

[trader_4]

Basically two ways to do this. The wing it way and the right way. The right way would be to pay an architect to spec out what needs to be done and get a building permit. That includes what Snag said, making sure that what's on either end can carry the load, that the temp walls can carry it, etc. Shouldn't need steel. How fast you can jack it, IDK. If it's only 1 1/8", I'd guess doing it over maybe 4 days or a week? Beyond some point it probably doesn't matter as you'll probably have some repair work above regardless.

Another method used is to get two steel plates cut to the size of the existing beam with bolt holes, put one on either side of what's there, without having to remove the existing beam, bolt it up. It essentially forms a steel beam. That works well for a basement, but in this case, the increased thickness, bolts and nuts would make it thicker when finished with drywall, so probably not a good solution.

Will be interesting to see what they have in there now.