Planning for the Beam

Jan 8, 2001

20 December 2000
I contacted United Consulting of Norcross, Georgia to schedule one of their structural engineers to come out and take a look at our planned beam span. He is planning to come out on January 8th. We have engaged United Consulting to prepare a design and specify materials, supports, and footings for the beam.
I'm slowly chipping away at my list of tasks to complete before construction begins in February. There are still a few tasks on the list, but it is getting to the point where it is manageable.
8 January 2001
This past weekend I managed to get a couple more tasks completed. I reconnected power to the island in the kitchen which had been disconnected during the installation of hardwood flooring. I just couldn't bring myself to drill holes in the new floor, but I'm over it now. I put the island power circuit on its own breaker in the main panel, and moved the existing overhead basement lighting circuit to the sub-panel. Now all the basement circuits are in the sub-panel. This should make electrical work in the basement much easier since you can now cut all the basement power with the sub-panel cutoff breaker.
While I was at it, I also installed a passive X10 signal bridge just below the main panel and wired it in. It's pretty obvious now that the X10 reliability problems I was having were due to the lack of a good signal bridge.
Today I met with Pat Carr from United Consulting. He took a look at the wall we want to remove and replace with a beam, and is comfortable that it can be done. Apparently this wall holds up the entire house. He will be providing specifications for materials, footings, and so on by the end of the week. I do worry a bit about settling and deflection of the beam in the middle causing cracks and problems above.