I was wondering if there are any engineers on here that could help me with a question. General contractor started framing on our home. He has two engineered beams running length of house that splits house into roughly thirds. On one end of home, he put a beam onto a triple window header which will have a metal beam hanger on it. Question is…..can this triple thick window header carry the weight of this beam? Three metal beams are also supporting beam for the length of the beam. If I had known this, probably would have made the windows smaller and had beam supported by vertical 2×6’s.
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Greetings
I am no engineer.
If the calculations are right, then it will be alright.
From esthetics, it would haunt me for a while.
Here, plates on masonry foundations need to be treated. And some inspectors would question the short chunk of plate attached to wall that ties into the masonry wall.
What Calvin said. Are these
What Calvin said.
Are these flush beams (buried in a ceiling package) or dropped beams?
As Cal points out, the aesthetics of a dropped beam plugged into a window header might look a bit goofy. If the beams are flush, you won't see them anyway.
Edit: Ooops... just looked at the pic. Looks like they are dropped. Is this the look you want? And how are you going to cover them? Also, think about how you are going to trim those windows.
These beam, for which there are two of them running the entire length of the house, drop in or fit into a pocket (either cut out of poured concrete foundation) or in the walkout basement part, should fit into a pocket made with four 2x6's.
Had I known it would end up like this I would have had windows sized smaller and moved over. The beam will obviously be hidden in the void above the sheetrock ceiling (9 foot ceiling), so hiding the looks of the beam is not a concern. It would be hidden anyway. I am more concerned if this is structurally sound and if the window header will carry the weigh of the beam for the distance from the metal post to the edge of he house. Thanks guys so much for your advice.......This has me really stressing out!
Just so you are not confused, this is a walkout basement you are looking at that will carry a whole story (ranch style home) above the beams.
Stress Kills.
So the beam is hidden in the ceiling? How is that going to be framed? Drop ceiling metal?
Couild you drop back on a shot or two? Give us a better idea of what this looks like? Seems to be an acute absence of bracing.
And again, is the lumber in contact with the masonry all treated? Getting harder to tell from a distance with the new treatments.
Best of luck.
I don't have any other shots......all wood contacting cement/masonry is treated lumber.
Yeah, one would hope that the bottom plate on that wall is treated, at the very least.
Heck, the archy/engineer coulda moved the beam to the left a foot or so without affecting the strength of the structure.
>>>The beam will obviously be
>>>The beam will obviously be hidden in the void above the sheetrock ceiling (9 foot ceiling), so hiding the looks of the beam is not a concern. It would be hidden anyway.
One of us is confused (likely me, considering it's your house). But I don't understand why you think this beam will be hidden.
See the pic.
Which dimension represents the finished ceiling height?
Seems to me that if it's A, the beam will be hidden, and you've got nothing to worry about other than structural strength.
If it's B, the beam will be dropped (exposed) and you've got strength and aesthetic issues to deal with.
No?
The beam will obviously be hidden in the void above the sheetrock ceiling
It doesn't look 'obvious' to me. Looks clearly like a ceiling with a beam below it. You will drywall the bottom of the joists, right?
Maybe I missed something.
I'm surprised the guy didn't use a hangar on the beam over the window. Also the window beam looks to be supported by not a bracket, but a vertical jack stud.
Plenty of room to trim the windows. 4" there now, and there will be close to 6" by the time the window's into the rough opening.
I think it's structurally sound, assuming the proper hangers. I'd be more worried about the load on the studs than the load on that header, so near one end.
Question is.....can this triple thick window header carry the weight of this beam?
Sure it can if the Architect designed it too. No one here can possibkly answer that for you. You have to ask the Architect who drew the plans that.This is normal every day framing. He had to spec the correct hanger also to carry the beam. The problem you have is that the framer should've put the top of the window header up against the top plates. Those little nothing blocks above the header are wrong and would never carry the load of hanger, or pass inspection where I'm from anyway.
The hanger that he should be using will be either a top mount or flush hanger. If it's a top mount hanger the flange of the hanger will sit on the top plate and it has to be solid underneath where he has that little 1-1/2" or less space. If it's a face-mount hanger, there might be holes in the hanger for nails to go in that space. That''s no good. The framer made a big mistake by doing that.
Bottom line is that beams that always run perpendicular to another beam and are hung off structural hangers when framed properly.
I've got a Ph.D., PE, SE working on it and he is going to email me the proper fix for it along with a bill for his services. It never should have happened in the first place. Laziness, dumb mistakes, and greed may have had a part to play in all of this.
Though sometimes sith just happens. Less so with modern drafting tools, but it's not unusual to encounter some Escherian features even now. Refineries and the like are an even bigger problem, since so much stuff is in three dimensions, so the odds of, eg, two pipes being "designed" to be in the same space is greatly increased.
A conventional house built with conventional techniques holds few surprises, and what surprises there be are easily rectified in most cases. But just scale up the house with bigger windows, longer joist spans, larger open spaces, and things get more complicated, even before you add in "fancy" features like multi-story rooms, cathedral ceilings, cantilevers, glass walls, restaurant kitchens, etc.
I've got a Ph.D., PE, SE working on it and he is going to email me the proper fix for it along with a bill for his services. It never should have happened in the first place. Laziness, dumb mistakes, and greed may have had a part to play in all of this.
What is the problem? Did you or did you not have an Architect draw the plans? All the framer has to do is take the jack studs out and move the header up tight to the bottom of the top plate and put new jack studs in. Is your problem that you don't think the window header is strong enough and you don';t trust a hanger? If so and the header is strong enough, the right size hanger is normal every day framing and you have no problem.
Ugly
Is your engineer going to specify how to raise the beam up into the ceiling? If not, you're going to be looking at an ugly beam that bisects a window.
No, earlier poster is correct.....beam will have to be enclosed, so that will obviously show throughout basement as would be expected. But it will hang inside a box with two jack studs and two king posts as it should have and the windows will be resized and moved slightly instead of butting against window header and toe-nailed as it currently is. Problem solved.
But it will hang inside a box with two jack studs and two king posts as it should have
The way the beam is cut flush to the inside of the wall still could have a hanger and you wouldn't have no jacks, king posts and box sticking into the middle of the room.
But it will hang inside a box with two jack studs and two king posts
Is there a footing underneath where your jacks studs are going?
This should be simple calculation for a structural engineer. You want to be sure as the owner, but residential framing is relatively simple, compared to commercial buildings or bridges. Load bearing materials don't always have to have direct path to the foundation. For example, joists don't always have to land on a stud, and headers are supposed to carry the weight of materials over head. This is why the headers are sized according to the whole plan.
Your beam does not land on the stud but it is close to the studs. In this case, the load may be allowed to be carried a little to the side of the header and then down to the studs. A competent engineer, maybe the one that your town depends on, should be able to tell if this situation will work or not.
The window landing below the beam may have been oversight. I was apprentice long time ago where the foreman found that chimney foundation and its framing did not line up. That is worse case but in your case, it may be a compromise between the structural demands and your demand for big windows. This would be the time to recheck your blueprints and make sure the scale is correct.
I thought one way to erase the beam just in that area may be to make the window area into a nook with window seats and matching drop ceiling.
I would just double check if your corner is properly braced. Hope it helps.