Odd I-Joist bracing, does this look right?
MeCasaEugene
| Posted in General Discussion on
The two beams don’t look like they are aligned, and the I-joists on the right looks to have some type of vertical blocking. They are single beams. One of the columns looks crooked to me.
In the background, one joist ends and the other begins over the I beam, and they appear to have a brace on some but not on all. Sometime on one side, other on both or neither.
Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.
TIA
Replies
Hey there, looking from afar of course, the steel beams could have easily beem one piece, not 2 (almost) bitted together. That looks like a mistake or an effort to make handling the heavy peices more manageable. I'd look at the engineer's spec on that. Not having those beams align will make finishing that space difficult. The wall below those beams would need to be extra deep to encompass the columns etc. The wood I Joists appear to lap over the steel which is fine, but do require blocking between them where they cross the steel. The other places you see vertical blocking on top of the beam must have a point load above. Those are "squash blocks" that help transfer a heavy load above through the floor system to the steel and down to the footing. Again, check the engineer's spec on location and type of blocking etc. Good luck.
Thanks for the response.
This is a two story house, by a fairly large builder on the east coast.
Reached out for a copy of the engineering design documents, my guess this is a cost cutting measure, but will check. My guess is that the specs do not require the bigger beam all the way through, so they can have a smaller beam for a portion of the span and a bigger beam for the remaining portion, but I will double check. Here is another view of the beams from the other side. There is a long footing there, that the base of all 3 those poles rests on below the slab, with two holes, a small round and a longer oval one, I am guessing this has been in the engineering documents all along. The good news is that all three are inside a mech/storage area.
There is a wall above those squash blocks, so yes, it must be load bearing.