I recently purchased a 1975 house. The family room has a vaulted cieling(seperate from roof) and one side of room is open to kitchen/dining room. between the kitchen and dining room I have a support beam that I want to remove that I belive supports the vaulted cieling, but not sure and needed to know what size header I would need to use if any. The living room is about 18ft long. The vaulted cieling is built using a double 2×12 beam or slightly larger(havnt measured, but its pretty big) that spans about 25feet. This beam is supported on both sides of the living room(18 feet apart) and also by the dining room wall opposite the living room(7 feet past living room). The vault is built using 2×6″ rafters that overlap at the top and are secured in an X fashion above the 25′ beam(notches are cut in the rafters that allow it to sit flush on the beam).
The support that I am wanting to remove(the support at the 18′ point of the 25′ beam) is sitting below a 2×6 cieling joist that ends at this support. The joist does not connect to the opposite side of the family room, it stops about 8-10 feet into the room perpendicular to the 25′ beam. This support is also about 2′ off from the center of the vaulted cieling which means this 10′ single 2×6 is supporting this portion of the beam about 2′ away from the closest load bearing support.
My initial thoughts is to replace this 2×6 with a double 2×8 that extends all the way from one side of the room to the other. The vaulted cieling framing will be secured to this double 2×8 in the same fashion that its secured to the current 2×6.
The opposite side of the family room I am gonna open up a 6′ section directly below the center of this vaulted cieling. I will be using a double 2×12 and 2 jack studs. The location of this 2×12 header that is 6′ will basically have 2 corners at the end, so in addition to the double jack studs, it will have the triple king studs that frame the corner of a wall. This will end up being a 6’x3′ dry bar.
There are no support beams that go from the roof to this vaulted portion of the cieling. All roof supports rest solely on the load bearing walls. The roof appears to be a hip style roof with collar ties, purlin braces and strong backs for support.
Replies
ask a P.E.
Hire a professional engineer top analyze your structural conditions and provide an appropriate answer. IMO, it's not in your best interest to solicite a free response to your proposed structural building modification on this forum.
This is a pretty complex scenario, and it's difficult for your readers to get a "picture" of what's going on (even if you supplied pictures). Even if there's a simple solution, I think someone would have to be there looking at the setup to figure it out.
take it down
Cut it down youll be fine...
JUST KIDDING!!! just trying to give deadnuts a heartattack!
It is difficult to give advice on a situation like this. Not saying youll get any other response but posting pictures would help understand your situation better. My first impression is that even at 2x 2x12 beam is undersised for the span its running. In SE Tn they are not allowing these long spans with dimensional lumber anymore (for headers and beams)
I am currently building a house that had a double 2x12 header spaning 15.5' supporting 2x6joist with un useable attic space and they requested either a post breaking the span, or engineered lumber.
This to say, dont think youll get a, "this is what you need to do" answer (aside from the, call an engineer).