Sagging 2nd Story Floor After Main Floor Load-Bearing Wall Altered Below

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Not that this makes any difference regarding safety and code, but was that 9 ft header showing any signs of actually physically failing?

Also, what do you have to change it out to now?

No this is a new house and he just re-did the math during his last inspection before the drywall goes up. I havn't seen the report yet but I think it will be two lvls and one 2x10.
He probably didn't think there was enough built in safety so he will just take it up a notch.
 
1. From the appearance of your picture, the header beam is not directly attached to the second story floor joists, there appears to be a gap with 1x material above the beam which would allow for movement of the second story downward into that gapped area. That is if the image is as my eyes see, there from. So it is acting more as a crippled header than a continuous beam and as said above appears to be two 2x's sandwiching a half inch piece of plywood filler vs an lvl.

2.
nealtw -- Can I clarify something about the chart with you? I know very little about this which is why I hired someone to do it for me. :(

In the first section of the chart, when it says "Supported Joist Length", does that refer to the span of the beam? And, in that case, does the chart say that they require 3 2x8s just to cover the 8' span? And what does the "9-8" under the "3-2x8" refer to?

It means that 9'8" running span of 8' joists between bearing points (lets say the outside wall and the beam)can be supported by 3-2"x8" douglas fir boards placed on edge and solidly nailed together(built up beam) effectively making the beam 4.5" thick and 8" high placed atop appropriate supports

lastly, support for stacked construction is directly inline above and below to assure the bearing points are consistant and don't allow deflection of the intermediate perpendicular construction materials.
 
Mightygiving -- You're right, from that pic and now that we've opened up a couple of holes in the drywall, there definitely is some other material above the beam. This was existing material, before the reno. Despite that material being there, shouldn't the beam have been placed high enough to avoid any gap? Is it possible that this material is part of a top plate? Otherwise, why is it even there?
 
He left the top plates of the wall in place, It is common to leave one plate there as the floor joists are toe nailed to it and removing it could do a lot of damage to the floor upstairs unless the drywall was removed from the ceiling. If he was putting in a 14" or 16" beam up, he may have been fighting the height and may have had to remove the plates.
 
He left the top plates of the wall in place, It is common to leave one plate there as the floor joists are toe nailed to it and removing it could do a lot of damage to the floor upstairs unless the drywall was removed from the ceiling. If he was putting in a 14" or 16" beam up, he may have been fighting the height and may have had to remove the plates.

Is it acceptable that both top plates are still in there? Or are they causing problems relating to the sag upstairs?
 
No they are not doing any thing but if the top one was removered it would be difficult to attach the floor joists to the beam and that is not a good thing. Removing the top one would have bean difficult and the toe nails would have caused dammage to the floor joist making that attachment evan harder. I would not fault your guy for leaving the second one, if you have ever tried to remove nails from old lumber!
All that changes if it is determended that you need a big beam as you need your beam to be at least 80" off the floor.
If that were the case then you would want some drywall to be removed from the ceiling so the nails can be cut or pulled and then the when the beam is installed, re-attaching the joists will be another trick.
 
No they are not doing any thing but if the top one was removered it would be difficult to attach the floor joists to the beam and that is not a good thing. Removing the top one would have bean difficult and the toe nails would have caused dammage to the floor joist making that attachment evan harder. I would not fault your guy for leaving the second one, if you have ever tried to remove nails from old lumber!
All that changes if it is determended that you need a big beam as you need your beam to be at least 80" off the floor.
If that were the case then you would want some drywall to be removed from the ceiling so the nails can be cut or pulled and then the when the beam is installed, re-attaching the joists will be another trick.

Thanks... so assuming that it is determined that our beam doesn't have to be especially high, the 2 pieces of the top plate can stay in. We have 8 ft (96") ceilings so I am hoping that with LVL and with the overall narrowness of the house (16 ft across) it will turn out that our beam doesn't have to be any more than the 9 1/4" ones. I will have to see what is recommended.
 
He left the top plates of the wall in place, It is common to leave one plate there as the floor joists are toe nailed to it and removing it could do a lot of damage to the floor upstairs unless the drywall was removed from the ceiling. If he was putting in a 14" or 16" beam up, he may have been fighting the height and may have had to remove the plates.

I see what appears to be top plate material above the beam, however between the top plate material and the header beam it appears that there is atleast one 1-1" x 2" on edge providing a gap then some other material at the far right side of the image in that same gap space, was my point, however it could all be illusion based on the image angle and depth.

Eveer111, was the ceiling on both sides of the beam span removed and replaced during the installation of the header beam? Because it appears that on the far side of the beam, the ceiling was removed and replaced, I assume to provide for jacks and supports, however, on the near side, it appears that the ceiling was undisturbed (ceiling appears to have texture in tact) which to me would lead me to believe that only one set of joists were jacked and supported (those in the far room but not the ones in the near room) which would have not allowed for support during the jacking and header beam installation operation and could have allowed one set of joists to drop and bind on nails thus allowing for a difference in floor levels once the header beam was installed and jacks released if from just the far rooms joists.

Which rooms above are showing the greatest difference in gapping, the one on the far room side or the near room side of the wall above? That would give you some indication if my eyes provided the right inferences from your image.
 
Hopefully 91/4" works or you be digging into the ceiling. Pulling the top one out can be real tricky as the joists are toe nailed from above, your best bet is to remove some ceiling drywall to get a saws-all in there to cut the nails.
 
Mighty -- Neither ceiling was actually removed/replaced. I was told that both sides were braced with supports before the wall was removed and the beam went in, but I didn't see that part myself. Is the bracing alone not enough for a typical wall removal/beam insertion?

I would hate to have to do anything to the close/textured ceiling in the picture since it's originally to the home and beautiful. Are you saying there's no way to jack up the floor without removing part of the ceiling on each side? This is obviously not my area of expertise, but I guess I was thinking that the new beam could go in, be held with jacks, and then the supports on either side could go in. I am obviously planning to discuss all this before any work is done but would love to know what the general options are.
 
Ever111, I am saying that both sides of the beam location would have to have been equally supported assuming that there was no preexisting deflection of the story above and it were level, bracing those two sides of the second story floor joists would have sufficed. However, If there was already sag in the second floor and only one side of the beam (say the far joist run were supported, the top plate left behind would not have provided sufficient support to the near side joist run which bears upon the removed bearing wall, prior to the installation of the beam and would have allowed for additional sagging of the near side floor joists during the wall demo and subsequent header beam installation. In other words, both sides of the beam would have had massive weight upon those temporary supports and would have compressed the texture on both sides of the bearing wall, IF properly supported at a level plain.

you say that there was material above the header beam, is there a visible gap between the beam and the top plate since you have removed some of the drywall above the header? how much of a gap is there?
 
Mightygiving: The old wall supported both floors as the floor joist from both room would have landed on the wall and that would not have changed and the sag of the floor upstairs showed up after the modification was done and we know the beam was to small, so the answer is "beam"
 
nealtw: You are correct regarding "beam" being to small and needing replaced, however the proper pre demo jacking & support of the joists is equally as important to assuring the beam is replacing the former wall at the floor level across all bearing points, which wasn't done during the remod and beam introduction.
 
The complaint was "floor sagging in center where wall was removed", that indicates to me a sagging beam. Let's give this contractor a break. If he, as you say installed to low, there would have been dammage to the drywall joint {ceiling to wall} on both sides of the beam.
 
I have a contractor replacing a load bearing in my house. After the wall done I notice the floor above the beam is raised. What should I do.
 
A contractor removed a load bearing wall with a steel beam. After they finished I noticed the floors above are raised. What do I do. The contractor does not want to fix it.
 
kpersaud: You should start a new thread with as much detail as you can add, plus pictures if you have any. And keep the contractor on notice and in the loop, so he is aware of the problem.
 
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A contractor removed a load bearing wall with a steel beam. After they finished I noticed the floors above are raised. What do I do. The contractor does not want to fix it.

Welcome and I agree, start a new thread and we will get to it.
 
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