That sackcrete stuff is no good for anything that requires strength. They don't put enuf cement in it and lots of it has the wrong type of aggregate.

 

I got a contractor to look at it and he said that for me to keep the height I have I will probably have to use a fletcher beam (sp?). Anyone know anything about these. I did some research on LVLs and Glulam and it seems I would need a 16" beam to hold the load of the floor above and the roof. I only have 2x10s now so that means I'd lose 6.5" which is unacceptable. I can lose 2.5" max which means 12" beam at most.
From what I gather it is a flat piece of steel surrounded by 2 wood boards. Is this wood anything special or just standard 2x# pine? Where abouts do I look for this and will these places be able to tell me if it would take the load? How would it get attached when it is getting set on top of brick columns on the sides?

 

Hi Dan,

Hope things are going well...

I've been following the thread, but I didn't notice where you had decided to take out the center support when you move the wall out two feet...you would need no more than the 2x10's if you put in a new center support...have you decided to go with a single garage door? instead of the two you have now...

If not, then you would pour and build your new supports on the ends and a new one in the center...then you can use a 'triple' 2x10 header on top of your supports, keeping the same height you have now...sorry if I missed the part of you going to a single door and the need for a beam to carry the load...

Brad

 

Brad,

I was contemplating which way to go for a while now and I still haven't completely made up my mind. My thoughts were that it would be nice to have just 1 door so I can easily pull the truck in and out (need to fold mirrors now) and 16' would be good because it is a standard size and I don't have room to open it up another foot to make it 18'. A garage door from Home Depot would cost approx 50% more for a custom 17' so I might as well go 16'.
My hesitation with this approach was that I'd probably lose height and I may be putting too much stress on the side supports. When the contractor came out he said he didn't even think they had a footer under the center support now but that it looked like it was set right on the driveway. He couldn't confirm of course. He had made another 2 door into a 1 door recently for another customer and used 2 LVLs at he thought 14" to support the load. Obviously since I am at 9.5" (2x10) that extra 4.5" is too much for me so he was thinking of alternatives and that is when the fletcher (sp?) beam came up. I don't know much about these though so that is why I was seeking some advise as to whether this is a better alternative for my situation. I pulled the expy in now and measured to the header without trim and I have 5.5" of space so I can stand to lose 2.5" of height max. That puts me at a 12" beam and he thought we could get 1/2" fletcher plate or so and that would hold.
Ideally I would just convert this garage to another room in the house and build a bigger garage out back but I realize that may be a permanent dream as I am not sure I'd have the money to do that for quite some time. Therefore to make the best use out of my current situation I'd opt for 1 door. Two doors would work but 1 would be most convenient and since I am working on this anyway I might as well try to get it to 1 door.
The contractor looked at my brick on the side supports and had no fears whatsoever that it would hold the weight. He is no structural engineer though so it is just his opinion based on prior experience. I have a little bit of cracked mortar between bricks and some of the bottom most bricks on the column have some cracks through the brick but all in all the wall looks solid. I was amazed by the fact that these huge beams only require between 3-4.5" support on the ends minimum depending on the type used. That is like tons of weight on the span of a half of the length of a brick. If I did it myself I'd make the bearing area twice that just in case.
All I really need to do is figure out a beam at 12" that will definitely support the weight, figure out a way to appropriately tie the beam into the brick wall so it doesn't fall off, and get the village to approve a permit without requiring me to spend 2 grand on an engineer and drawings. I had a bad thought about accidentally leaving the yakima racks on the top of the truck and pulling in too fast and pushing the beam right off the columns so I know I want to make sure I get that thing on there good. Everything else should be relatively easy.

 

Hi Dan,

Did you get that beam correct, wouldn't it be a 'flitch plate' beam? not fletcher, but I guess everyone can call it what they want, just as long as we are on the same page...a 'flitch' beam is a length of steel sandwiched between two lengths of timbers, in your case, 2x10's...you would take a 9" high piece of 1/2" steel and fasten it between the two 17' 2x10's

Take a look at the link below and with your mind, you can figure what you would need I'm sure...

http://www.toolbase.org/Docs/MainNav...ocumentID=2947

Brad

 

Hi Brad,

I had a feeling I was spelling it wrong because my google search didn't turn up much. Thanks for the correction and that link you sent me looks like it will certainly be helpful. I will review that and follow up.

Thanks again!

 

Your local Roof Truss builder should be able to build that flitch plate beam for you, and maybe able to do the engineering too. Mine did the beam over the garage door and the house window next to the garage door where two roofs come together. Also there are 4 courses of brick over the 18 foot wide door, sitting on 90' angle steel thats part of the beam.

 

I grew up in a house like the one in this thread, and in the same part of the country too! Ours was one of the few rare ones with the garage doors coming in from the side though. (I'm now in earthquake country where things are built a bit different.)

Anyway, here's a wild idea. It is possible to "sink" the header into the wall above the floor it is supporting. The wall sits on top of the header, and the floor hangs from the side of the header via joist hangers. I've seen the show This Old House do this at least twice. I think one time it was a glulam approximately 4x24 in cross section. The other time they made a fitch/flitch/whatever plate beam. Both time it was so that the room below the load bearing wall would have no beam whatsoever hanging down from the ceiling.

The cantilevered upstairs of this thread's house would make this solution a bit difficult. (The beam would need to be in the wall where the house number is located.) Thus, some serious cantilevering would be required to support the ends of the beam. A pair of posts could also work, but they'd ruin the style of the house. The big advantage would be garage doors nearly as high as the garage ceiling itself!

 

Hi Everyone,

This project has been pushed back a bit as I've had so many other things happen (big willow tree falling on neighbors property, hail damage to roof, etc) but I have come to some more solid decisions.
I found a steel fabricator near me that gave me some data on what residential steel beams can hold. I am fairly certain I will go with a W8x21 steel beam. This is 8" nominal thickness (actually 8.25") and 21lbs per linear foot. It is rated for 24kips at a span of 17' so that is 24000 lbs (he said 1 kip = 1000lbs). I would think that is more than enough and the great thing is that it should fit perfectly and give me an inch more height than I have now.
The current beam is a 2x10 that is notched in the corners 1" so that the actual opening the header sits on is 8.5". That means all I need is a quarter inch shim under the steal header and it should fit snug. Then I bought a few bolts where I can drill a hole into the steel H-beam flange and into the brick and the bolt has an expanding column for when you tighten the bolt which will hold the beam from falling off laterally. There obviously isn't much lateral force involved so I am not too worried about it anyway (unless someone hits it with the truck - i.e. forgets to take something off the top rack). The brick on the front end of that beam needs to be removed to slide the header in and because the beam is close to 2" wider than the old 2x10 doubled up header. I will just split the brick lengthwise when I am done and patch it in so that everything looks as it does now.
For a temporary wall I plan to attach 2 2x6s together at nearly 19' long and put them inside the garage about a foot from the current header. Then I have 5 adjustable screw jack columns to lift the house to be able to switch out the beams. I plan on jacking it over a week or so to make it easier on the house.
Now I just need to get permit plans done and get a garage door ordered so that I can start the work.

Still looking for recommendations on a 17' garage door. I thought about doing one 16' and building it in but that sucks to lose width and an 18' one might look kinda funny from the outside since the start of the panelling will be like right on the end of the column instead of having a space like usual. I was going to get a colonial style door with the windows in it from clopay but a custom 17' is going to be near $1500 and I think that is way too much.

 

Better double check that beam rating. My beam chart doesn't show a 21 pound W8 beam. What it does show is that a 24 pound W8 is only rated for spans up to 14 feet. Meaning - it isn't stiff enough for longer spans. A 31 pound 8" by 8" W class beam will hold 20 kips at 18 feet.From my chart, you are probably looking at needing a 10 inch tall beam.

BTW, the standard way to replace a header is to build a standard stud type wall to carry the load while the header is gone. You could build this just inside the doors so that the neighbors don't see it and get worried.

 

Where did you get this load information? The guy I got it from faxed it out of some american steel institute book. Are there different grades of steel that I need to worry about?

 

My data was from a photocopy of a page from some construction book. However, the numbers match the data in a friend's steel vendor's book.

Of course there are various steel grades. Perhaps my numbers are for a standard grade and your numbers are for high strength steel.

Up above, I think you mentioned that there is already a steel beam across the garage in middle of the house. What size is it?

Your building permit folks might be able to tell you what size beam you need. One would hope they have the data to double check this sort of thing.

 

Anyone know of a source online that has figures for steel beam loads? Now I want to double check that a w8x21 beam does indeed carry 24,000lbs.

 

I think you should do a little more research. I am a structural engineer in Denver. First, I would try to find out what the load is that the garage door header needs to support. Then you can size a beam accordingly. This will save on cost. Also, if you were just to put a proper footing under the existing garage support column, you would need the soils report for your home site. This will tell you what kind of load your soil can support. With that knowledge yuo could pour the proper footing to support your home. Steel prices are extremely high right now and I think there are cheaper alternative materials that could be used. I will run a check of a W8x21 steel beem over a 17 foot span and let you know how much it can hold. I will also, try to give you more economic alternatives.

 

Thanks. I look forward to your reply.