Lee Schierer
07-19-2006, 5:24 PM
As you may recall, a while back I discovered that my shop ceiling was sagging nearly 3" in the center of the room. After condsiderable research I elected to replace the poorly constructed beam with an LVL. A local lumber yard sized it for me and gave me a really good price on two 18' 6" LVL's. I jacked up the old beam and built a temporary wall out of 2 X 4's. The problem was complicated by the fact that the floor under the beam has a basement under it and the beams were running parallel to my temporary wall. As I jacked it up I kept checking the joist underneath to insure it wasn't taking too much load.
Once I had the temp wall in I was able with the help of my neighbor, to get the old beam out in once piece so I could use it to correctly size the new beams to length. They wanted through bolts in the new beams to hold them together as one, so there were 36 holes to drill that all had to line up once the beams were up in place. They would have been too heavy and awkward to get up assembled.
Once all the holes were drilled, two neighbors and I were able to lift the new beams in place one at a time, put the support post onder one end where it had been removed, apply the construction adhesive and get all the bolts in and tightend.
The new beam looks great and didn't sag at all once I put the weight of the ceiling back down on it. I did lose about 2" of clearance under th beam, but it was worth it. Now to get the drop ceiling back up.
Once I had the temp wall in I was able with the help of my neighbor, to get the old beam out in once piece so I could use it to correctly size the new beams to length. They wanted through bolts in the new beams to hold them together as one, so there were 36 holes to drill that all had to line up once the beams were up in place. They would have been too heavy and awkward to get up assembled.
Once all the holes were drilled, two neighbors and I were able to lift the new beams in place one at a time, put the support post onder one end where it had been removed, apply the construction adhesive and get all the bolts in and tightend.
The new beam looks great and didn't sag at all once I put the weight of the ceiling back down on it. I did lose about 2" of clearance under th beam, but it was worth it. Now to get the drop ceiling back up.