HO wants to remove a 10′ section of a bearing wall carrying an upper floor and creating an opening from the kitchen to the diningroom by installing a microlam beam (2 – 1 3/4x 9 1/2″ members)
What would be the best (and safest) method to install the beam by myself? Supporting the upper floors on both sides of the bearing wall? Damage to floors and ceiling? Twisting the 2x4s flat and install one member of the beam, then removing the 2x4s and install the second member?
Any ideas?
Replies
You can support the load above, cushion the ceiling
with something no mar.
Or, I remember doing this once- Cut out every other stud, then hack half (enough to slip one microlam) of the end of the remaining studs to allow you to place that single microlam up on the notched studs. Jack into place and secure. Pull out the remaining studs, slip in the other half.
This assumes you are leaving the plates above.
beam
I usually frame a wall on either side,before I tear anything apart I find the strapping if there is any this is where my plates will go and use a gasket ontop of the top plate to minimize damage ,
and do all the prep work first ,blocking below where my bearing points will be ,cut my jack's, etc...
and I only cut out what I have to
beam installation
the beam will be installed under the topplates. Floorjoist above are 2x10 16"oc, same below, all supports are continuous to foundation. Bearing wall runs perpendicular to all floorjoists.
I was thinking already to install temporary adjustable teleposts before removing the studs. Just cannot find small enough plates for the tops. Also trying to avoid any damage to the ceiling. It is nearly impossible to make the repairs invisible on a stipled ceiling.
if you don't want to use a temp wall........
then notch half the existing studs (I'd remove every other one first), install 1 microlam, remove the remaining studs and install the other micro.
Since you're alone- place the ladders so you can set one end on top, move up the other end, tip up and slide into place. To fine tune the right height you might use kickers on the studs to rest the micro jus short of where it needs to go. Then slide it over and jack into place.
If you use a temp wall on both sides-lay the micros on each side of the opening after cutting the nails on the bottom plate and b/4 placing the temp walls.
Whatever method you use, think it through and work safe.
Sandwich the existing?
If it won't mess up their idea of how the architecture should be, I'd be tempted to propose:
Strip the drywall, and build the new kings;
Sandwich the existing studs between the new microlams;
Cut off the intermediate studs and install a plywood bottom plate underneath it all, or blocking between the cut studs;
Wrap it all in drywall.
This way nothing is ever unsupported.
You might also have to address the new loading configuration all the way down to the footing, because you now have two point loads, instead of a distributed load.
beam installation
thanks but cannot be done since I have to retain the wallthickness (3 1/2 plus drywall on both sides).
Fortunately the beam is only 10' long. I talked with other framers; they felt comfortable to turn the 2x4s sideways to allow one laminate (beam consists of 2- 1 3/4 x 9 1/2) slip on the kingposts, then removing the 2x4s and install the second laminate and screw them together (clamp and glue).
Will use a helper since all work has to be done on and in a finished area
I did this recently...
I won't claim to have done it the best way, but here is what we did:
This was in a basement with a finished ceiling, but bare concrete floors. I had some 8 foot 6x6 rough cut lumber laying around, but you could buld something similar by nailing 2 or 3 pieces of 2x lumber together. I had some of the metal poles (telescope out, pins hold the to length and then screw-type jacking to get them at just the right height). I used some left over sill seal (rolls of foam about 6 inches wide) to protect the finished cieling. I put the sill seal on top of the 6x6 and had two friends on ladders hold them up to the cieling. I put the screw jacks under them and got them tight. THe 6x6s were about 2 feet away from the old support wall on both sides. If you are worried about protecting the floor, you would need something under the screw jacks as well.
In our situation, we were replacing an old wall that had significant rot on the bottom plates and studs (built 60 years ago with non-treated fir lumber) so the floor above had actually sagged about an inch. We started jacking the floor up by turning each screw jack one turn at a time until the whole floor was back at the correct height and everything was level. The we replaced the wall with a beam (18" microlam, 3 layers). I rolled some saffolding under the affected area and had some help getting each piece of micro lam up onto the scaffolding I then glued and screwed the micro lams together to make the beam, then had some help to start elevating the beam to the cieling by lifting one end and placing scrap 2x4s, plywood etc under the beam. then lift the other end and do the same thing. We repeated this about 10 times until we were almost touching the ceiling. Them we could roll the scafolding a little to get into just the right position and we used house jacks with 4x4s to snug the beam up where it was supposed to be. Once we were happy with everything, we secured the beam to the joists and fit our columns underneath the beam (actually had to cut them to length, jack the beam up one click, place the ccolumns and the jack the beam back down a click). After everyting was secured, we took down the 6x6s, took out the house jacks and were ready to start finishing with drywall, etc. There were a few drywall/plaster cracks to fix since we had jacked the center of the house up an inch, but very little other collateral damage. Most of the cracks existed before, and our jacking actualy closed the up and we just had to repair the cracks once we were satisfied that everything was stable and where we wanted it.
Like I said, this may not be the "best" way to do it, but it was very stable and effective. Lots of work, though, and it required a couple of friends with some muscle to help... I used 8 screw jacks (4 on each side) on an 18 foot opening and two house jacks under the beam.
Did you size the beam right? Why are you using two members rather than a contiguous beam (other than to accomodate the method suggested after the fact by a couple of posters)? 9 1/2" seems maybe a little shallow ... but I'm not a structural expert.