Years ago, I bought my house and it had an RV carport included. I had the ground filled with concrete, had walls put up, put a new roof and added three garage doors. I feel lucky to have this much space, but would love to be able to remove most, if not all of the vertical beams to have a more open layout Can anyone see an economical and easy way to do this, if it is even possible with this setup? I thank you for the help
You could replace the interior vertical supports with a single beam that spans from one end to the other. They do this kind of thing all the time in houses to remove interior walls. With what looks like sheetmetal roofing, there is not a big load, less than a shingle house roof.
They have relatively inexpensive beams made like OSB, called TimberStrand which I used to replace the 50 year old Glulam at my old shop, which spanned rollup garage door opening that was about to collapse. And yes I'm NOT a certified structural engineer, but they also paid me to rewire all the lights in the shop complex too, which I have no official license for.. They have span tables to know how tall they should be to span the distance, basically I used the same height and thickness that I removed, and they are stronger than the glulams.
https://www.weyerhaeuser.com/woodproducts/engineered-lumber/timberstrand-lsl/timberstrand-lsl-beams/
In reply to nimblemotorsports :
Thank you for that link and pics / I need pics to comprehend sometimes. So that timber strand - one vertical front and rear and then along roofline. And then beams can come down is what you are saying right? Do that on each side and then should I 'box' the two sides in front and rear?
Nothing to add
but a land cruiser AND a 4 runner?! Living the dream
colour me jealous
In reply to mr2s2000elise :
In all fairness, I don't own the 4runner. But I had one before the Land Cruiser and loved it.
Ah ok. That 4.7 L in the 100 is a sexy beast. 4 sspd or 5 spd auto on your 100?
In reply to mr2s2000elise :
Yes I bought an 03 for the extra gear in the tranny and the side airbags for my little one. Replaced my pickup so it's a family do it all and trailer hauler.
IMHO removing very much of the vertical bracing is a little dicey.
While I agree there isn't an excessive vertical load to carry, and an LVL could do that effortlessly. I will also state that I don't know a whole lot about how those carport structures are designed as far as wind/shear loads, I would guess not too much since they are designed as open structures allowing wind to pass through instead of pushing the structure. Probably also designed against lift, which would be a concern on an open structure.
Did they make any improvements to the structure when they added the walls? I would assume the verticals add a fair amount of rigidity to the building, and the need for rigidity increased several times over when the structure was enclosed. The concern would move from wind lifting the structure, to pushing it over and collapsing it, then blowing away the remnants.
It can be done, but it is no where near as simple or cheap as has been implied.
That looks like about a 40' span. That's a long span for a engineered LVL beam. Which means it will be a pretty big beam (expensive).
The beam would need to sit on posts which bear on concrete footings. No, your 4" thick slab is not enough.
The attachment points would have to be considered for wind load. Every post you cut should be secured to the beam with plates that prevent lift, and the beam would need to be secured to the posts, and the posts secured to the footings. You've created a really big parachute there, and those metal buildings are exceptionally good at filling with air when there are significant gusts.
I am also a bit concerned about your lack of diagonal bracing. The walls you've added create a lot of wind resistance, and there is nothing bracing them at all.
You said "economical and easy". If that means $200 solution, then add a few braces and walk away. I would budget about $2000 for beams that span that far (+footings, braces, etc), assuming you are doing the labor yourself.
Can you get a 40' long beam that weighs 600 lbs 8' in the air?
Unless you have some grandfathered rules about your building, you might want to sell it and put up a pole building in the same spot.
Monitor style building like that usually have supports at those locations. Of course you have a lot more since it looks like an aluminum structure.
The "vertical beams" are columns. You want to remove the excess columns.
You likely will need a building permit because structure becomes a life safety situation. This means someone to design, draw, and certify the new structure, and have a contractor build it. You could build it yourself but it's way easier to pay someone to.
You will need a concrete foundation pad at each new column. The new column spacing will be determined by the loads and distance. You probably will get 12' - 16' span as being economical, or two new columns.
If you decide to wing it without a permit things can get bad quick. If the folks in power find out you will have to get the work certified, which is essentially the second sentence above.
Oh, wild guess about cost: $6000.
In reply to Shadeux (Forum Supporter) :
I agree with everything you've said above (I'm assuming your $6K number includes labor). Except, a contractor is not required. Homeowners can do their own work.
Note: If you get someone to design it (an engineer, etc), it is highly unlikely they will do it. Design professionals do not like to mess with things that impact performance of pre-engineered structures. (Because those structures are designed with so little tolerances, design professionals don't want to attach their seal to anything connected to them).
I think you are on your own.
To translate...
It is very likely your jurisdiction requires a permit and engineering for structural work like this.
It is also very likely an engineer won't do it for you.
Your call.
...and if you do the work without a permit and don't get caught, it's very likely a home inspector will note it on his report if you ever sell the house.
If the mods were done without a permit, it's possible the structure will have to be torn down before it can sell.
Some of those buildings are available with garage doors on the eve side walls. In order for that to work they have to have an engineered way to remove a couple of the posts from those load bearing walls.
If I was going to diy getting rid of some of those I would be doing it that way and be content just getting rid of a couple of posts where the car doors open on each side. Done like that it would also be particularly difficult to determine as an owner mod later.
I am very supportive of both Shadeux and SVreX.
But don't despair until you get a quote.
I didn't catch if it was a custom designed RV port or a pre-Engineered (as standardized drawings that are adapted to the placed concrete per project) or even modular built system (as in precut pieces and/or subassemblies shipped whole). Either way, maybe if you can find the company that did the design they already had the "Full Open Floor" option that wasn't bought by the original owner. If they do have it, then you would have the engineering done for you to just swap the proper structure in.
It is a cheap job in terms of construction work. Just the cost of doing it wrong is very very high.
I was gonna say.. Miata.. Land cruiser and 4 runner.. You and me think alike..
it's been up for 20 years - 5 years as a carport open and then 15 years ago I did the rest of the work - assume it was permitted correctly back then. And ideally just the beams on either side of the Cruiser and 4runner are the ones I would love gone. That center section spans 18 feet. Thanks for all the advice and suggestions so far.
In reply to Caprigrip :
The issue is not the original permit.
The issue is that the mods you are going to do will require a new permit. They will be really obvious to a trained eye like a home inspector. I've done home inspections. I would definitely have to put that on my report.
Once it's in a report, you could loose a sale.
...but more important than the sale...
Wind lift is a real thing, and very difficult to understand and predict in a pre-engineered structure.
Cutting out columns has a legitimate risk.
I would do it, but I have 40 years experience.
Did you say which state you are in? I'm in California and did a whole lot of work without permits on my house and when I sold it, it was not a big deal, but the appraisal did not fully value the outdoor kitchen in my opinion. They did not say because it was built without a permit (I did get permit for the gas line), but it should have added $10k-20k over comparables and it didn't, my agent complained but was told we don't change our appriasals, and becuase it was FHA loan, they was no reappriasal allowed. No big deal really, I paid $115k and sold for $225k, so I was good. ;)
How far is it from the back to front? One could put just a single column in the middle to half the distance and make the beam significantly smaller, but that might not really help vs the setup as-is. Another option is to shorten the distance by moving the columns closer, I did this in my addition in the last house by putting the column that supported the roof beam inside a closet outer wall (vs inner wall) shortening the span by 2ft.
I would agree with the advice to sell it and replacing it with an open space design, but of course that is the easy answer! :)
Might just see if anyone would buy it?
In reply to SVreX (Forum Supporter) :
It is also very likely an engineer won't do it for you.
It depends on the Architect or Engineer. If it was my garage I would not have qualms about doing it, but it's risk mitigation.
This kind of job is low reward - high risk. It's not hard, but it's no fun either for a licensed designer.
In reply to Shadeux (Forum Supporter) :
Agreed.
Sounds like both of us would have no problem doing it for ourselves, but might hesitate to do it for a customer.
He's in Texas and the building appears to be 30 feet ,front to back. That's a lengthy span in any jurisdiction, even though he won't have a snow load type situation like I would in Michigan. Putting a column halfway along each side makes sense. The original structure wouldn't have required a lot of wind bracing, but that was before all those wind catching walls were added. Put me in the camp that says I'd do it on my own, but as a professional engineer I wouldn't put my seal to it unless there were a complete new structure inside the existing sheathing. At that point my bill and that of a contractor probably add up to the cost of a new building over the existing slab and may not be enough for a 30 foot clear span building in any case.
Consider a steel I beam. I just glanced and found these in Texas:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Steel-Beams-I-Beams-/151483827969?_trksid=p2385738.m4383.l4275.c10
that's $2300 for a 50' beam. Might make it feasible
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