I probably shouldn’t admit to this but we (meaning I, while Liz looked on incredulously) replaced the main beam for the THIRD TIME today.
I plead insanity, but here is how it happened: I woke up in the middle of the night thinking about our beam loads. I hadn’t actually calculated any of this, and because you can learn literally anything on the internet these days, I spent an hour educating myself and came to the surprising conclusion that my beam was STILL undersized which surprised the heck out of me. How undersized? Not even close to the dead load and it would literally take a snow load that never happens here to come anywhere near bending allowances so if that was the only issue I wouldn’t have bothered.
However, after drilling the holes for the hanging chair bolt locations, Liz came up with the brilliant idea to thread 1/2 inch schedule 40 pipe through the eye bolts to create a cool and very functional detail beneath the beam that could be used for a large variety of hanging objects. The problem? The holes I’d just drilled were spaced wrong and the pipe would deflect too much at that spacing. I also just didn’t love how sloppy the holes were and wished I’d used a drill press.
Sooooo…. it was back to Reclaim NW for another beam, and then all the various woodworking to size and sand it, then more very expensive Rubio MonoCoat, and finally back into the roof. This now puts the amount of time we’ve spent screwing around with this beam at equal to the amount of time it took us to frame the entire rest of the structure. (Shakes head shamefully).
It’s a nice beam though, mostly clear with a pretty bluish stain throughout the sapwood. It’s possible that tomorrow we can actually move forward with the build.
– Brian.
