Wood joists hung from rect. tube steel
Anyone have experience welding or otherwise fastening joist hangers to the side of 3/16″ wall tube steel? The spec I have at the moment is for a 10″ x 4″ x 3/16″ tube. Seems like an easy deal to simply face-mount hangers, install 2×10 joists, and strap the underside of the joists with 1x… everything’s flush top and bottom. This is a second floor girder, so there’s going to be rock on the bottom and I don’t want the girder projecting thru the ceiling at all.
The Simpson catalog shows a couple of applications for top-mount hangers. To do that I have to add a 2x to the top of the steel for nailing, giving me 11-1/2″ plus the nail heads and flanges. That means using 2×12 for joists and furring out the bottoms by maybe 3/8″. Also do-able, but the joists are more expensive.
Anyway, I don’t see any hangers in the catalog designed to weld to the face.
edit: obviously I could have the steel drilled, pad the faces with 2x, and nail joist hangers to that. Just looking to skip that step, mostly because I have a neighbor who’s a welder and would love to help for next to nothing.
Edited 1/4/2006 5:48 pm by davidmeiland
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You know, of course, that top-mount hangers can weld to the top of a beam or tube. Why not do that?
It looks like they can weld to the top of a web, not so sure about a 3/16-wall tube. I'm going to get a spec for a web next week, maybe go that route.
Someone on JLC pointed out this:
http://www.betterheader.com
I've used "Better Header" before and they're great. They're done and all you have to do is get them up and nail away. Any reason why you have to use a tube steel and not something like Better Header?http://www.betterheader.com/ibeam.aspJoe Carola
Edited 1/7/2006 5:47 pm ET by Framer
I can use whatever I want. My engineer will figure it out for me while I'm on the phone, then stick the calc in the mail. The only real goal I have is to fit everything within a 10" package (i.e. 10" tall web or tub + 2x10 joists with 1x3 strapping) if at all possible. It may be necessary to go to +/-12" but I'm not resigned to that yet.
The specs I have at the moment are for the tube mentioned, plus alternates for a glulam and a parallam. The reason I like the steel is that it's a lot stiffer and only 10", whereas the wood beams are closer to 12". I don't have pricing on the steel yet but it looks comparable if not cheaper.
Better Header looks like an east coast item. That stuff can get way pricey out here.
I don't know your structural load requirements, but there are steel wide flange beams available that will meet your max height spec, and probably handle your loading.
A nice W10 can come prepunched in the web for wood packouts bolted through, and then your joists can face-hang to the packout with Simson facemount hangers. You might even get things done with the appopriately sized W8.
OTOH, it is quite likely that the tube member with its 3/16" wall can handle topmounts being welded there.
The spec says floor load = 40 live, 10 dead. The beam is multispan--32' length with a post at 23'--and the width of the building is 24' outside, so I'll have joists just short of 12' on each side of the beam.... and I don't want a bouncy floor.