I Wish We'd Known...
...about laminated veneer lumber (LVL) six weeks ago. Unfortunately, I just learned about it last night over dinner with friends.
The good news is that we had a great time yesterday evening hanging out with our long time friends Dave and Carol (and their three adorable girls, of course). Dave and Carol are architects and have provided us with invaluable advice over the years. Aside from their professional expertise, they also have the wisdom of 14 years working to restore their own Chicago bungalow.
The bad news is that Dave had a great idea that we really could have used before the holiday break.
Over dinner we told them about how we'd made good progress on our living room ceiling. This included repairing the existing 2x6 joists, which were inadequate to safely support the 18 foot span that stretched across the living room and supported our master bedroom above. We we're proud that we'd not only sistered those joists with brand new 2x10s but we'd also jacked up the floor taking out about 1/2 of the 2" dip in the process.
"Did you consider using LVL for that ?" Dave asked.
We admitted we'd never heard of it. Dave graciously went on to explain that LVL is an engineered structural wood product with twice the strength of normal milled lumber. It's also considerably less likely to bow or warp.
Don't get me wrong--our newly reinforced beams are great. There's significanly less creaking when we walk across our bedroom and virtually no bouncing. It's amazing how great it is to address a structural issue we'd previously resigned ourselves to living with.
The thing is it would have been great to avoid loosing 4" of height in the front room of the house. LVL could have achieve at least the same structural reinforcement of the 2x10s we used with the same 2x6 dimensions that matched the original beams.
Looking at the bright side, we still expect to do some structural reinforcement over the back bedroom and kitchen when we (some day) install a dormer and a 3rd bedroom upstairs. LVL could be the perfect choice, as we're thinking that we'll install the reinforcement from above by ripping up the existing floor boards in that attic crawl space. In that scenario, the structural rigidity of LVL would probably allow us to avoid a small step up from the existing hallway upstairs to the new room we'll add.
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Comments
This is Monday-morning second-guessing, but mightn't a flitch plate or flitch beam have been even better?
Posted by: CPDay | January 29, 2007 5:04 AM
Yay for LVLs. We had the same situation - a 17 foot span above our living room with 2x6 joists, and we couldn't afford to lose headroom so we went with LVLs. However, our living room was in good shape, and we didn't want to add a support beam into it, so we tackled it from above. Let me say it was hard, messy, and there were still cracks and a few "accidents" in the ceiling underneath (and we used contractors). Be prepared for the worst.
Posted by: Jay | February 13, 2007 1:29 PM