What do you think of this steel beam installation 1

[Eagle42]

Hi,
Please have a look at this footage (file 2790) and photos I took behind my bath of a steel beam that was installed for a single story kitchen extension on the back of a 3 bed semi detached house. There are cracks upstairs and quite large ones above the beam in the bathroom. I'm no expert but the installation doesn't look right? Any comments advice would be greatly received

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-l0xl8r4kAO_xqUIX4PHNk_ov2AEBs3Q?usp=sharing

Best

Gareth

 

[racookpe1978]

Can't claim any calculations on this one at all, but it looks like the two I-beams are attached together by only two bolts. May, or may not be high-strength bolts at that. The floor joists appear to be cut into and are resting (not bolted) onto the lower flange of the I-beam, but there seems little sign of wood cracking or massive sagging on the ends of those joist pieces. The entire middle of both whole beams though, is very likely sagging - even the brick at midpoint above the beam has cracks.

If the detailed pictures and bathroom pictures are upstairs (above the two beams), then those rooms and walls all show signs of settlement, and poor repair job afterwards. Lots of foam expansion seals in there too.

Well, don't buy it. Don't live in it. If it is "your job" to sign and seal for the "repairs", I'd think twice before accepting the contract - this one will be nothing but trouble.

 

[dauwerda]

Looks to me to be more of an excessive deflection of the steel beam more than anything.

 

[MIStructE_IRE]

That’s quite a U-block lintel over the back door.

Whereabouts in the world are you OP?

 

[BAretired]

Haven't a clue what I'm looking at. So no comment.

BA

 

[Agent666]

If you have concerns as as the owner, the best advice you can be given here is to contact a local engineer. They should be able to review and if necessary do some calculations to justify the existing design or highlight if any issues exist.

Agree with those above regarding that excess deflection could cause the damage implied. Just fixing up the visual damage does risk it occurring again over time, especially if the beam really needs to be stiffened. While you have it opened up this would be a relatively easy exercise that your local structural engineer could advise on.

 

[racookpe1978]

On the other hand, there "have been" cosmetic drywall repairs made - though not painted over yet.

Add a foundation block (footing) below, then add a vertical pipe column near midpoint of the two steel beams. Yes, it will be visible if centered, but accept that penalty of a surrounding wood or drywall surrounding the vertical steel pipe (4 inch, Sch 80 with 5x5 1/4 plate at both ends will exceed most house columns). Two 3 inch or 3-1/2 dia Sch 40 pipe columns may be less obstrusive if they are on both sides of a walkway rather than on the center of the walkway.

 

[MIStructE_IRE]

Oh come on - there are ways to deal with this other than installing two columns below!

OP - you need a local engineer to come and have a look in the flesh.

 

[Eagle42]

Hi, thank you very much for the informative replies. Unfortunately it was covered over and the contractor didn’t call for a site inspection , just sent him a photograph apparently . I’m getting a structural engineer to have a look but it will need opening up and the calcs checking, I haven’t a building certificate as the approved inspector noticed the cracks.
The crack under the bathroom window which is the wall that the beam is supporting is a concern as it’s got a couple of mm wider (done in 2018). The video shows directly underneath the crack and at 50secs into the footage the block seems to have no support, there is a crack forming in the ceiling of the bathroom too in the same vertical plant as this crack. The cracks were corrected a few months after beam installation but have gradually reappeared over two years.

Best

 

[Eagle42]

I’ve uploaded some plans and calcs to the shared drive if it makes more sense . Thanks again

 

[MIStructE_IRE]

Who did these calcs? Were these done ‘after the fact’?

The beams are supporting old walls and there does not appear to be any check on total deflections. Total deflection normally governs in this situation.

Also - the main beam under the wall:

1. The drawing calls up 2 twin beams here.
2. The calculations only design one beam.
3. The calculations call for a 254 UC. Is the installed beam 254mm deep?

Regardless, you really do need a local guy to review.

 

[Eagle42]

Thanks yes the calcs were done after unfortunately.

 

[Satya91]

Dear Eagle42,
In the calculations span seems to be around 3m where as in the plans the span is about 5m, and there is only 1 beam instead of 2 as shown in the drawing. Provide a Column to decrease the span or look at welding another inverted T section to the steel beam to get the correct deflection but that would decrease the headroom. Nonetheless this has to be taken care of immediately by a local structural engineer as the cracks will only get worse,
best regards

 

[Eagle42]

MIStructE_IRE, would there be any reason for not following the plans and using only two beams?
Thanks

 

[MIStructE_IRE]

Sure, one beam can work fine (once properly designed) and would be more common than a twin beam detail for this particular situation.

That’s a call normally made by the engineer though. As you didn’t have an engineer its not clear to me who decided that these beam sizes were adequate. Presumably the builder who no doubt “always does it like this”...

 

[Eagle42]

OK I understand. We paid an "architect" to do the plans and he used an "engineer" colleague of his to complete the steel calcs. We were not informed at any stage of this alteration to the design.

 

[MIStructE_IRE]

He may well have had someone do the calcs for him. The drawing don’t even specify the beam size so they’re not engineers drawings anyway. That said, the span lengths used in the calcs provided don’t match the drawings either so I’m not sure what’s going on.

Find out who the architects engineer was and get him out to have a look at it.

Generally an engineer wouldn’t inform clients of a change to a beam anyway so i wouldn’t have an issue with that. It just needs to be put right.

 

[Eagle42]

Yes, I agree. I'm a bit worried as in the photo of the exposed beams am I right you can tell the beam is more like 5m long? 24 bricks + mortar joint? The steel calcs specify 4.3 m as you pointed out. I'm definitely getting this reviewed and the beams physically checked. Thank you for all your words of wisdom.

Thanks

 

[Eagle42]

I’ve managed to measure the beam through some spot light openings, it’s more like 4.7m. Any ideas what this will mean when the calcs are for a 4.3m beam?

 

[LittleInch]

I agree with BA here- it's very difficult to work out what the video is looking at or what the and where the photos are.

A mark up of the oringal draiwngs for first floor would help with some arrows.

The beam span on the drawings is 4.7m not 4.3, but that beam looks pretty might to me.

the issue may be that when they took the back wall out, they didn't support the wall very well before they put the beam in or fill in the gap very well between bottom of bricks and top of beam., hence the inner skin wall has settled and hence your cracks.

I'm assuming this is a cavity wall house?

Not enough construction photos to work out what happened.

You might need to open up the area in question to see what happened and fix it better, but no one here can work out where this is on the plans or what we are actually looking at in that video. I've tred 4 times and still don't know which way Im looking half the time



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