Squished beam support

[Scott Etco]

I think there may be a problem, what do you think? (Squished split support of the main horizontal beam)

There is cracking upstairs. What do I do?

 

[Tomfh]

Yes that appears to be a bearing failure. The bearing zone is too small, and the seat too short.

The beam appears to have quite a bit of sag too, given the amount of end rotation.

You should probably have a structural engineer look at it in person.

 

[RPMG]

I would consult a carpenter service that specializes in water damage restoration.

 

[BAretired]

I would be tempted to leave well enough alone. There could be a little additional "squishing", but I suspect most of it has already occurred.

As shown in the photo below, the gap width to beam depth is 2.65/123.25 = 0.02150 radians rotation. Assuming that both beams have equal rotation, this means each beam has a rotation of 0.01075 radians. If load is uniform, that corresponds to a deflection of approximately L/300 in each beam...no cause for alarm.

BA

 

[JLNJ]

It that some kind of particle board I'm seeing? We need more photos of the supporting structure and fewer of the cracks.

The load must be pretty significant. An engineer could chase the loads down for you and look at whether or not you have elements which are significantly overstressed. The would at least tell you if the cracking is cosmetic or a sign of structural overload.

 

[ChorasDen]

What's overtop this area? From the photos, appears the OSB above is crushing as well. What is the plate material below? OSB has Fcperp of 360psi, interesting that the crushing in the OSB appears less than in the plate below...

 

[phamENG]

ChorasDen - if that's a beam then more crushing below makes sense since most of the load is transferring in. Either way, the F[sub]C-perp[/sub] values are pretty meaningless in the presence of water. There's some pretty good staining there.

It warrants a thorough review from a structural engineer. More than likely the advice will be to make sure the water source is cut off and the wood is dried out, but there could be more to it that we can't see here.

 

[ChorasDen]

phamENG - agreed that this should be reviewed by a local engineer experienced in wood design. Moisture appears to be minor, maybe this is a freshly cut section, but I don't see any edge swell on the sheathing, and the staining is fairly superficial. Regardless, I agree with all the posters above, this should be looked at more deeply by an experienced individual.

 

[oldrunner]

There are two loads on the top of the lower 2x4 plate: One from the wall above that has squashed some of the particle board flooring and the other is the end reaction from the floor joist/beam on the right side. Some one needs to run the vertical loads to see the obvious.

 

[nackra]

What are conditions at the other end of the beam?

Did a bearing wall get "removed"? I have seen remnants on residential "improvement" projects

 

[RPMG]

Honestly, I thought the "water restoration carpenter" solution was conservative. If BAretired is singing, "Let it go", then I'd be inclined to go with that. I think consulting a structural engineer for this, especially directly, is just bloat.

If this were my house, I would buy some Simpson connectors from the hardware store and add some blocking. Some netted tape, gyp bd compound, some caulk? It's a wood house. If there's a real problem, it will be seen in 5 years, and it can be addressed then.