Structural Work in Westlake Village
Opening a Westlake Village kitchen to the family room with a flush beam, posts and footings, so the floor stays level. Aspenwell Construction.
People crossing from kitchen to family room in a Westlake Village house walk over the old wall line many times a day, so after a bearing wall comes out the floor there has to stay level and the ceiling clear. A beam sized to sit flush within the ceiling depth, posts tucked into the remaining walls and a footing under each post let the opened room work as a whole.
Flush or dropped
A flush beam sits up within the joists, so the ceiling reads as a flat plane. It often needs to be deeper or made of steel or engineered lumber, and the joists hang from it on metal hangers. A dropped beam hangs below the ceiling and is simpler to install, at the cost of a visible line overhead. The engineer sizes either one for the load above. Posts at each end carry that load down to new footings, so nothing bears on the old floor framing alone.
Review and inspections
Before the wall is touched, the engineer's drawings and calculations need approval from the building department serving Westlake Village. Temporary shoring holds the floor or roof while the old wall comes out and the beam goes in. The inspector checks the footings before concrete, then the beam, posts and hardware before drywall closes them. Exterior work on a lot shown on the state fire hazard maps can bring ember-resistance details into the plans. The written quote says which finished walls and ceilings the work opens.
About our structural work serviceEverything we do in Westlake Village
Structural Work in Westlake Village: questions
When cripple walls sit under the floor, the answer is both: anchors fasten the sill and plywood braces those short walls. Houses on a slab, or with the sill bearing right on the stem wall, have no cripple walls at all. We confirm which Westlake Village case applies on the first visit.
A standard retrofit can go in on the code's prescriptive details, and we prepare them. Removing a bearing wall needs a licensed engineer to size its beam, the posts under it and their footings. The building department reviews that set before work starts.
The sill and its anchors come first, with the wood probed and the bolts counted. If a wall is coming out above, we also find where its load lands below and what the existing posts and footings sit on, since new posts will need footings of their own.
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Book an inspection in Westlake Village
Describe the house and what it needs. We look at the structure first and send the quote in writing.