Last week I posted on how I moved the breaker panel so that I could tear down the last wall. Well this Monday, I finally had a chance to get to it. This was probably some of the scariest demo I have done on this house. The wall was a load bearing wall, and a fairly complicated one too. It supported the original roof of the house (a shed roof which has more recently been buried under your standard double pitch roof) a ledger that the ceiling beams hang off of in the living room, and the ceiling in the laundry room. I managed to carefully brace every couple of feet as I ripped down the old wall. When I got the whole wall down, all I had to do was slip in the new beam that spans the distance, and remove the temporary bracing. About that beam.
I was nervous before I started about what to use, so I went to the local home depot and asked them. They assured me that you should never mess with a structural wall without consulting a structural engineer first. Not what I wanted to hear. The good news is that they referred me to a local structural engineer that gave free consults over the phone. I called the guy up, and he was super nice. I gave him the specs of the house and all the span lengths etc. He recommended using three 1 3/4" x 9" microlam beams (also known as LVL's) nailed and glued together. Easy enough. It came to about $130 for the three of them. Well worth it to know that our house isn't going to fall down next time it snows.
During and after pics after the jump.
The bracing during the demo.
Supports viewed from the kitchen.
The beam.
The open view from the kitchen.