Expert: Ted Barnhill (Principal, Design45 LLC) - 4/4/2008

Question
im redoing my basement and want to open one end up a bit....my house is 40'
long with a I beam down the center of the house..no seams its one continuous
beam...there are 3 supports one every 10 feet..i was wanting to move one end
beam 3 ft...what are your thoughts...thanks

Answer
Tracy,

You may have the flexibility to make the move that you suggest, but you can't know until you have an engineer do the load calculation.  In broad terms, 10' is a fairly short span, 13' is average.  If your I-beam is of decent size, and your house not especially large, you may have no problem at all: of course you'll need to pour a new footing under the relocated post.

A local structural engineer can provide this service as an hourly consultation.  Unless you have "as built" drawings, he or she will first  need to visit your home to document the existing structure.

Good luck with your project.  -Ted


P.S.  Sorry for the delay in my response.  I was away for a week and forgot to turn on the auto-responder.