All: Going nuts trying to find size for a header for a project in home.
Header will be 15 ft long. Span 4 – 3 ft wide fixed patio doors. Supported at each end on either exterior wall of existing house (Reinforced concrete ICF wall) or on framing structure of 2X6’s. Will support 1/2 of a 2 ft wide shed type roof. Patio doors will be separated by 2X6 stud that I would prefer to not be considered load bearing. Been searching the web for a span table to dig out size, have had no luck. Figured that I could use same calc as for an 18 ft garage door header, since that is longer than my project & unsupported except at ends.
Second question: What should I use to support corner where I plan on 2X6 framing as support. Should I get a steel column w/ bolted lateral connection to house wall about 2 feet away? Wall at that point is a poured, reinforced concrete column about 12″ square. Bored, epoxy filled holes to hold bolts is an easy no-brainer.
Third question: Support at other end will be on a vertical 2X6 bolted to existing ICF wall. Is a single width of 2X lumber enough bearing surface for an engineered beam of this size? Or should I double the thickness to a pair of 2X’s?
Don
The Glass Masterworks
“If it scratches, I etch it!”
Replies
You can get span table here. However, it is not likely to include information on such a small roof. http://www.ilevel.com/literature/TJ-9000.pdf. You need to know snow and wind loads in your area. You might see if the supplier of your beams can help size them--the wholesaler who supplies my LVL's has an engineer on staff. I can give him a crayon sketch and he can size a beam.
Even without much load, a span that big seems likely to sag, so the trimmers between the doors might be functioning as load bearing whether you wanted them to or not.
Even though it doesn't sound like you have much weight on it, I would use a minimum of 2 trimmers on each end.
Hi Don,
I love these puzzlers and trying to construct the picture in my mind with most of the informations but a few open questions that lead to endless variable loops in my mind!
;)
So is this on a gable end wall with no floor above to create this situation where no load other than the awning?
Why would you not want to consider the trimmers as load bearing? They are whehter you want it or not. Other wise, size like a15' span, not an 18' span and use double jacks under each end
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I am not sure but in reading this again I see what might be another engineering problem if this is an existing house and you are cutting this into th ewall right up to an outside corner. That destabilizes the intersecting exterior wal that I assume trusses or rafters land onto.
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I don't like to design beams without seeing the plans or the situation myself.
As Marson said - Whomever supplies LVL beams for you will get their supplier to size beams for you. But go to a lumberyard where you're more likely to get someone who has a clue - Avoid the big boxes.
Piff: I made the problem needlessly complicated by trying to keep it simple & stupid.This is a bump out of a wall that consists of 4 - 3 ft wide fixed patio doors. The current header does not bear on the door panels or their trimmers (At least not very much). The wall is one side of a hallway. The current header is a HUMONGOUS steel wide flange beam, about 15 ft long. The beam was designed by an engineer at the place I bought it, & is designed for no intermediate supports. My purpose was to preclude the 2X6 trimmers between the patio doors having anything but the lightest load. Since they were essentially 8 ft columns, they would bow out eventually, putting side stress on the patio doors. The existing wall is one side of an inside ell. The WF beam is supported at the house end by a pocket in a reinforced concrete wall (House is ICF's) & at the other end it is supported atop a 12 inch square reinforced concrete column. Both ends are bolted down w/ 4 bolts. That WF beam supports the entire roof load. Consequently, my bump out only needs to support itself.One end of the bump out is attached to the house rear wall, into the same ICF concrete as the end of my WF beam. I have 6 bolts grouted into the wall to hold that 2X6 firmly against it. Further, I took out the foam and brought the concrete core of the ICF wall out flush for the 2X6 to bear against using non-shrinking grout, poured into a cavity formed by a sheet of masonite, the concrete core & the sides of the cavity made when I cut the foam out. The bolts are grouted into the ICF core w/ Simpson epoxy & the grout poured around the bolts. I made my bolts long enough to hold on a pair of sistered 2X6's, just in case you all insisted that I have the surface for bearing load for my beam. That end of the structure isn't going anywhere!Now - the other end of the bump out is now displaced 2 ft out from the 12 inch reinforced concrete column the WF beam sits on. I now have to create a new column to support the header for the new opening for the 4 patio doors. The WF beam will continue to support the roof. All my new header has to support is one half of the load for the 2 ft wide shed roof between the existing wall & the header. This is Nawth Jawja (Honeychile) & I could use a Maine snow load for a 1 ft wide roof load w/o affecting the design of the beam very much. I won't tell you where I grabbed the idea for using an 18ft garage door header as a start point (It smells too bad). I could go back to the outfit that sold me the WF beam - but it is over 60 miles away & a pain in the hemorrhoids to get there. Delivery charges would cost as much as a new beam. My wife & I hoisted the original beam up to its position atop the walls. (We used a scissor lift - DW is NOT an Olympic champion weight lifter from Bulgaria.) Space is now at a premium, but a bit of reflection tells me that a LVL might weigh as much as a steel WF. My real question NOW, is how should I support the header at the corner? A steel column? I think w/o the load of a significant roof I don't need another 12inch square reinforced concrete column. This is at a corner w/o significant lateral support back to the original wall. Kinda just sits out in the middle of nowhere. I think a steel column w/ a steel "C" section bolted to the original concrete column would be appropriate. That way I would never have to worry about the new wall leaning out from the rest of the house & creating cracks. Is this overkill? Boring holes in concrete & epoxying them in doesn't bother me.Never intended to go to the Home of the Pot for this. Except that I think they use Boise Cascade for their engineered products & BC has engineers to help w/ designs. The closest two Homes of the Pot are a mere 18 miles away & picking up a 15 ft beam (or two) on my 12 ft trailer isn't that big a challenge. I just calculated that at L/480, for deflection, I get nearly .4 inche. That would freak out a 2X6 simple, unsupported laterally column, wouldn't it? OTOH, if I were to place the header, leave it alone for a week or two to allow it to assume its max sag THEN put in my 2X6 trimmers I could avoid significant load on them, couldn't I?I always said that there are two kinds of engineers - the kind that makes a problem so difficult it cannot be solved - he/she starves. The second one looks at hideously complex problems, makes rational simplifying assumptions and is a smashing success. I kinda led you all into the first kinf of engineer on this one.Thanks,DonDon Reinhard
The Glass Masterworks
"If it scratches, I etch it!"
Given what I understand of all that, you can toggler bolt or wedgebolt or even tapcon the first jack tot he adjacent concrete, then ad one or two more jacks at each end, then a triple 2x6 would do for a header in most places on this. You are in the south IIRC?
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
Piffin: I live about 60 mi north of Atlanta, GA, in a very rural county. When we started our house back in 1997, the county didn't even see the plans, & didn't ask for them. I had an architect design the building, & exceeded his design in many places. I'm not sure what the snow & wind load requirements are, so I built my house to Dade County, FL standards, knowing they would exceed anything we would ever encounter - except for a tornado. Using ICF's I built the lower walls to 125 mph sustained wind standards. We built a closet under the stairwell as a tornado shelter to withstand 250 mph winds & bought a jail cell door for it, which exceeds Dade county standards. Joe Carola also wrote me an answer, suggesting essentially the same solution. I already have provisions for a 2X6 to be bolted to the reinforced concrete column with 6 bolts. Simpson will make a profit off me, just for bolts! It will be easy to add the additional jacks to it. In my mental wallowing through this problem I completely forgot the sheathing I would put on the exterior. That will tie the King & the jacks to the new corner column and also solve my dilemma of separation of the bump out from the main structure. All I have to do is use 5/8 sheathing, construction adhesive & a generous nailing schedule. Sorta like making a shear wall for earthquake issues. Based on things I read on Breaktime, I went w/ foamed in place Polyurethane & convinced our county inspector to let me blow the underside of the roof so my AC ducts are in conditioned space. It has been in the teens outside & our attic stays in the 70's. We fill our propane tank every two yrs, whether it needs it or not.Think I'll investigate engineered wood items anyway to preclude a lot of load on the 2X6 trimmers between the door sections.Thanks for the help. Collectively, you put me on a path that makes sense.DonDon Reinhard
The Glass Masterworks
"If it scratches, I etch it!"
Boss: see the note I just sent to Piffin.DonDon Reinhard
The Glass Masterworks
"If it scratches, I etch it!"
Header will be 15 ft long. Span 4 - 3 ft wide fixed patio doors. Supported at each end on either exterior wall of existing house (Reinforced concrete ICF wall) or on framing structure of 2X6's.
Why will the header be 15' long with 12' of door?
Will support 1/2 of a 2 ft wide shed type roof. Patio doors will be separated by 2X6 stud that I would prefer to not be considered load bearing.
So the header is not really spanning 15' because you have 1-2x6 between each door.
What should I use to support corner where I plan on 2X6 framing as support. Should I get a steel column w/ bolted lateral connection to house wall about 2 feet away? Wall at that point is a poured, reinforced concrete column about 12" square. Bored, epoxy filled holes to hold bolts is an easy no-brainer.
Why in the world would you need a steel column for a microlam header? All you need is a 2x6 king stud and double jacks underneath the header.
Joe: Taking into account support at each end of the header & trim, a short length of wall at one end, the header comes out to about 15 ft in length, even though there only 12 feet of glass.I guess I overly complicated part of the statement of my problem. The one end kinda hangs out in space - it has no return to any other significant lateral support. I want to tie it back to existing structure in both tension & compression, hence I suggested a steel column attached to the existing wall w/ a steel section bolted to an existing reinforced concrete column that supports an
existing steel WF beam header.DonDon Reinhard
The Glass Masterworks
"If it scratches, I etch it!"
If your saying that the wall is 15' and you want the header to span the whole length of the wall and tie into the two sidewalls, you still don't need a steel column. Nail a king stud on both ends and then nail three jacks underneath the microlam and into the sidewalls and that will give you nailer for Sheetrock.
Once you pass the corner you just fill in the studs up to the opening. You still don't have to go end to end in my opinion. You can put the header exactly where it's supposes to go and have return wall at one end and no return at the other. I frame that way all the time.
Maybe you can't get way with that where your from. Either way, you still don't need steel column to support thew microlam or any other reason.
Joe Carola