We like remodeling projects where design and structural challenges have to be reconciled. That was certainly the case with the whole-house remodel shown here. The 3,400-square-foot ranch had a low-pitched roof and 30-inch roof overhangs; part of the job was to open up the floor plan at one end of the house and replace the old, cramped kitchen with a spacious great room. This would require removing the center bearing wall and installing a stain-grade structural ridge beam.
Our engineer spec’d a 6 1/4-inch-by-16 1/2-inch-by-30-foot glulam, with bearing posts at either end extending to concrete footings in the basement. The challenges were how to hold things up until the beam was in and how to get the beam into place. Because the design called for the beam to extend through the gable wall to the rake trim, we decided the easiest way was crane it into place from outside.
Before removing the interior bearing wall, we built temporary supporting walls on either side. Cross-members stiffened the walls and supported a metal staging plank onto which we would slide the beam. With the temporary supporting walls in place, we removed the exterior portion of the old ridge, enlarged the opening at the gable, and added exterior braces to support the overhang. (The interior portion of the old ridge board didn’t need to be removed; the new beam was wide enough and sat low enough on the roof that the existing ridge could stay in place above it.) We erected pipe staging about 15 feet from the house (half the length of the beam), then stationed one worker at the top of the staging to help guide the beam toward the house and another on a ladder against the house to feed it into the opening.
Once the end of the beam had been guided into the hole at the gable, the crane operator set it down on the plank. The worker on the staging moved the strap from the center of the beam to the end closest to the crane, so that the crane could push it in most of the way.
Inside the house, we used 1-inch-diameter pipes to roll the beam into place. The pipes also proved useful in steering the beam: If it started to veer to one side, pivoting the pipes to one side or another would get it back on track.
The crane had to maintain some upward pressure on its end of the beam, which pushed the inner edge down into the plank. Because of this, we had to drive wood wedges beneath the other end of the beam to get it up onto each roller.
We used a pair of jacks to push the beam up tight against the rafters, then installed Parallam posts at each end. The exterior was trimmed and stained to match the house siding.
The entire job took about four hours, with six of my crew and the crane operator.
Dennis Gehman is president of Gehman Custom Remodeling in Harleysville, Pa.
