Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Lets plan a theater space

Post=good
Remove post=bad
Point loads are your friend.

If you bring in a structural engineer they will say "No. You cannot just remove that post." I have heard of people trying to add more to an existing beam to make it beefier, but there are horror stories about that too if not done exactly right. The best recommendation for reducing/eliminating some posts is replacing the beam with a steel one. This is no minor undertaking.

Your best bet is to bring in an expert as you planned, and tell them what you are trying to accomplish. They will give you the best advice on how to make it happy. It probably won't be cheap though. Just saying that now so that your expectations are set.

Sorry guys, didnt make it clear.

An engineer will determine how to accomplish this. My preference is to sink an LVL into the floor space to eliminate the protruding beam altogether. We are also facing the likelihood of beefing up the neighboring footing.

We bought this house with the basement space as a requirement. This post would be dead center in the room. Maybe military invisible paint?

Hmmm.... Interesting...
How would the LVL beam go up into the floor joists without compromising the structural integrity of the joist system? I've never heard of something like that, and it certainly would have been awesome for some of the basements I've finished in the past.

Like this. Have to use right hangers too. Seems promising perhaps.

Cha-ching!!!

Wow. I wondered if that is what you were looking into.
Those aren't up to code here. I think that it is just a city code though. They are sticklers about a lot of stuff where i live. Here, the floor joists must have a beam *under* them.

I've heard that pretty much everywhere allows you to do this for ceilings in main living areas where there is just an attic above it. For most homes though, that isn't needed since the roof trusses are also the ceiling "joists" anymore.

A lot of work is involved to do go this route. You would need to support each and every floor joist on both sides of where the current beam is, and then you would need to cut out (as precisely as possible) where you want the beam to go up in to. Then put the beam up, attach the hangers, and remove the temporary supports.

Here is a link with some pictures at the end showing how it can be done.
Installing a load bearing beam

If you can somehow live with a beam (or end up having to live with one for code requirements), you could put a metal beam right next to the current beam, get it supported with poles (obviously a lot further apart than your current ones and would need new footings), and then remove the current poles and beam. Would solve the pole issue probably, be less work, and probably less cost that all of the materials and labor to do it the other way.

I moved a 12 foot beam in my current house to accomplish what you are thinking with the joist hangers. I didn't want it right above where my wet bar was supposed to go. I ended up turning my home theater wall into a load bearing wall that was about 3 feet to one side of the beam. I made another temp wall (with studs right under the each floor joist), and then moved my wall beam over 3 feet away from the theater. There is duct work right in that area, so now it just became a part of that framing. Obviously I built up supports for each end, but they ended up inside what were to become walls and thus never be seen.

For the other beam in the basement that ran about 20-25 feet, I just lined up a wall with it to be a part of our office and bathroom.

I love the look you are going for without a visible beam, but unfortunately for you your beam is right in the middle of the basement.

Smashy smashy! Opening up.

Nick,

I have no idea if I'll be able to swing it here either. I dont even know what day garbage day is yet so I have to do some homework. Ha! Would be better for feng shui for sure.

My father in law does this stuff for a living and we work well together. Should be alright from that end. We are planning to brick over the windows in the room as well as inject a cranky crack we found in the foundation wall. I've read too many build and tear apart threads.....

Including myself, we are pretty trades oriented and this should be a pretty fun build. Exciting! Its nice when the rest of the family is bringing up the basement plans ahead of me. I'm playing coy so it seems like they are urging it on. So far so good.

Take lots of pictures. Always good to have before and after documentation, plus good for whenever you end up selling the house so that you can show that you fixed the cracks. I fixed a few foundation cracks and made sure that I showed that it was done very well. It looked just like the one that the professionals did before we bought the house. It is actually pretty easy and just adds piece of mind.

Good luck with whatever you do. I didn't mean to come across as a downer, but so many times I see people getting their hopes up on things just to have them not have the skills or understanding to do it right. It sounds like you are going to be just fine once you find out what you can do about those beams.