Adding new beam to distribute roof load
My partner is currently renovating her house and is looking to merge her kitchen and dining room. During her permitting process, she was advised that interior walls parallel to ceiling joists do not carry load so she proceeded to remove the wall between the two rooms. Ends up her joists run perpendicular to the rafters and there were some vertical and diagonal trusses directly running from the rafters to the beam above the removed wall. Needless to say, the beam has started to display a minor but noticeable sag. We have shored up the beam and are now looking for solutions to distribute the load.
One Structural Engineer we had on site advised that we could install a second, more capable beam near the existing beam and run new vertical trusses directly to the rafters. This would distribute the roof load enough that the existing beam would not be overloaded/wouldn’t sag and wouldn’t require any roof shoring/replacement of the existing beam. The beam would be located just above the central pillar of the foundation and the load point would effectively be centered on the pillar. This proposal seems like it would technically solve our issue but I am concerned that this would not meet code and/or would add too much dead load on the structure.
Is this suggestion a viable solution to redistribute load off of the existing beam? What sort of information would we need to collect before we approach the city for a permit to proceed? Is this even code-compliant or would the city require us to simply replace the existing beam and redo truss connections in kind?
Replies
Unless you can provide some drawings and/or pictures, I/we might have trouble understanding the situation.
A structural engineer should have a good idea of his plan and code along with the inspectors. While it doesn’t happen all the time, your local authorities might be of some help as to their interpretation.
The original idea was proposed by a Structural Engineer. They have since gone radio silent so we are just going with a complete beam and truss replacement with another SE and contractor.
I have attached the top down and cross section of the room(s) in question for contractors to reference. The first SE who gave us this idea wanted to add a second beam just to the right of the existing beam and have only vertical trusses to the existing rafters. Obviously there is a lot of additional information that is omitted, but I am still curious if this second beam approach is actually reasonable or not.
It would seem to me that the renovation was started without a proper permit. ( I could be wrong)
If you have had an engineer on-site, engage them to prepare a plan and sign it. The building inspection and permit folks should give deference to a licensed engineer, and should require one for situations such as yours which do not follow a prescriptive building code formula.
The engineer should include any consideration of the capabilities of other building elements, down to the foundation and soils below that are required to safely handle the loads.
The short answer is that the City was involved with the permitting process prior to submittal. They only asked which way the joists run compared to the wall and then approved the permit outright with the comment that joists run perpendicular to load bearing walls. I was not involved in the permit submittal but this all above board (unfortunately).
The concept I was asking about was proposed by a structure engineer while on site. He gave us a quick how-to but it seemed a bit too convenient, hence my posting here. I have included some reference docs on a separate response as I am still curious if this proposal would have actually worked or not. We are going with a complete beam and truss replacement at this point.
As Calvin suggests, there's just not enough information from the description (word picture). Photos and sketches might lead to sensible methods to resolve the problem.
Never, EVER, remove an interior wall without first understanding the load path to the foundation!
That is solid advice