Concerned about load bearing wall removal...
I recently renovated my home, part of which entailed the removal of a wall that spanned about 28’, give or take a few inches. I had an engineer as well as the city sign off on the project.
Basically, what they did was remove the one wall that spanned +/- 28’ and installed two LVL beams sandwiched together along the roofline. Can’t remember their height but they had to have been around 24” each. They vaulted the ceilings for about 18’ of that 28’, while the other 10’ is the original 8’ ceiling. Where the vaulted meets the unvaulted they installed another LVL spanning the depth of the house to create a cased opening.
Now, I thought I might need a column right where the vaulted section meet the unvaulted section, which was where four walls intersected before and there was a pier in the basement. Contractor and engineer said unnecessary. City signed off on permit.
Fast forward, the worrier in me is still concerned the roof isn’t adequately supported. The floors sag a little (though to be honest, i’m pretty sure they did before, too), and there are one or two small cracks in the ceiling where sections of drywall had been patched (is this settling, or is this expansion of seams due to weather...I’m not sure).
The obvious answer is to get a second opinion from an engineer before deciding there’s a problem; I plan to do that. Before I incur that expense, I’d love to get everyone else’s thoughts on this and whether or not I’m worrying about nothing.
Comments (12)
BT
5 years agoRelated Discussions
Second Floor Addition / Removing Two Load-Bearing Walls That Meet
Comments (6)I appreciate the supportive opinions! With respect to columns in the L/R, I foresee only one, about 5-6' in from front of the house and about 8-9' in from the left side. This is where the corner of the original house sits now. The I-beams will meet at this post and the other sides will be held up by the portions of the load bearing walls that will remain in place. If colums will be needed at those points to take the extra weight, they can be tucked away so that they don't or only barely show in the L/R. In any case there will be only one column to be worked around for funiture placement. With respect to adding value, yes I think both projects definitely will. Right now the house has a nice kitchen and a nice MBR. Everything else is small and kind of weird. Post-remodeling the house will have a good size L/R, a conventional D/R, an 11 x 11 room (TV room, office...), and three real B/R's. Not a McMansion by any means, but a liveable 3 BR house. So it seems I should start with an engineer......See MoreWorried that load-bearing wall was removed- advice?
Comments (3)The structural engineer can tell a lot even without open walls. He'll look in the attic to see how the roof structure is supported. When he know which way the joists and rafters run, he can make a few educated assumptions that will go a long way to relieving your anxiety. If there isn't any sagging of the opening and adjacent walls, cracking of drywall or plaster, the chances are they properly supported it. Get a licensed structural engineer to conduct an inspection....See MorePrefab Fireplace Removed: Possible Load Bearing Wall
Comments (4)Bring a gas contractor in to make sure the line has been safely capped. And maybe bring a contractor in to double check the work. There's a reason why he's a cabinet guy, and not a contractor....See MoreRemoving load bearing wall advice
Comments (8)Your floor plan is already plenty open. You want it more so? Do you realize how much this is going to cost? It looks like you just bought the house. I suggest that you live there for a while. You may find that you like it just the way it is, especially when you see the bids for changing what the original architect designed. As an aside, your wallet will be much happier and fatter if you stop watching those home "improvement" television programs. They're designed to make you unhappy with your house so you'll give money to their sponsors, who already have more money than they need. Sorry for the rant. I'll get off my soapbox now....See More
PROVirgil Carter Fine Art
5 years ago
blubird
5 years ago
PROJeffrey R. Grenz, General Contractor
5 years ago
drdeb1234
5 years ago
GreenDesigns
5 years ago- PRO
Jeffrey R. Grenz, General Contractor
5 years agolast modified: 5 years ago generals1992
5 years agoI believe they are actually two 30’ LVLs. 28” sounds about right for width. I’m not sure if the beam in the middle (the cross section where my cased opening is) is an LVL. It does look like one. Not sure if load is being transferred there and don’t believe he added piers in the basement on either end - the load is sitting entirely on the outside frame of the house, which is on a concrete block foundation.
I do trust and am not overly concerned about it, but, again, the worrier in me sees cracks in the kitchen ceiling and sagging floors and attributes those to shotty structural work. The cracks are along the strip of drywall ceiling added to cover up where a wall previously was, and appear on either side, so I also suspect that could be weather related. The floors....well..the house is 68 years old and may well have been sagging before, I just didn’t notice because the rooms were smaller and the slant was less pronounced.
Here are some more pictures of the work during construction.
PROJoseph Corlett, LLC
5 years ago- PRO
Virgil Carter Fine Art
5 years ago User
5 years agolast modified: 5 years ago[I have edited this comment to correct for the OP's misuse of feet and inch symbols (' & "), etc.]
The missing information is the span of the rafters (the dimension between the exterior bearing walls). That dimension and the required roof Live Load will determine the load on the new beam that supports the ridge. With that information anyone can size the beam from the manufacturer's chart.
Assuming the big beam is the largest made (24" tall), the Boise Cascade Versa-Lam design chart says that for a 30 ft span, two 24" LVL's will support a Live Load of 544 lbs/lin. ft. using a deflection limit of L/360 to reduce the chance of cracking of ceiling drywall.
if the total width of the space is 28 ft, the beam would be supporting 14 s.f. of roof for every foot of its length (the exterior walls support the other 14 ft). 544/14 = 39 lbs/s.f. which is the Live Load the roof can safely support. That's the required Live Load for parts of MA based on the worst case snow storm.
I'm not a structural engineer so this information is for entertainment purposes only. But the above calculation only requires taking the Live Load capacity of the assumed beam size from a table and dividing it by the area of the roof supported by each foot of the big beam.
I suspect the reason the beam is so large is to reduce the max. defection even beyond what is represented by the design tables (L/360). "L" is the beam span in inches.
If you want to check your engineer's work without hiring another engineer, get a copy of what was submitted to the building department for the permit and post it here. Its probably a table like the one below.
Mark Bischak, Architect