Steel Coming Up

We are going to be opening up the west side of the 2nd floor in order to expand the new bedroom into the new addition. In order to keep the building stable a steel beam has to be put in place to support the roof and ensure that the exterior walls remain plumb.

The steel beam that has to be placed is approximately 14' long and weighs (according to Mick, the steel contractor) about 900 lbs.

The mason pocketed the brick to accommodate the beam. It was raised, by hand, and put into place by the Masons and Steel Contractors. Once the beam was put in the mason was able to open up the rest of the wall to create the new opening

This photo looking out of the pocket that was created to accept the new beam.

This photo is looking at the rear of building. You can see Iouri (he is the head Mason) up on the scaffolding making the final cuts to accept the beam












Here is a video of the guys bringing the beam up. Surprisingly it did not take that long to do. About 20 minutes and it was up. They basically brought the beam up one side at a time.



Here is the video of the beam up and being prepped to go into the building. One small blunder the beam was actually supposed to go up 180 degrees opposite of how it was hauled up. So the mason had to removed a little more brick from the left side of the opening. Oops :)



Here is the final result. What do you think, should we just leave it this way?
The opening has a tarp in place to close it up and protect against the elements. The tarp will remain in place until the addition has been completed.