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Beam for loft/hoist: Is there a legit engineer in the house?

Discussion in 'The Hokey Ass Message Board' started by Kevin Lee, Jan 4, 2012.

  1. alanwoodieman
    Joined: Jun 14, 2011
    Posts: 63

    alanwoodieman
    Member

    if you want to make it stronger, just do what any rodder would do--BOX IT!!, seriously it will handle a lot more that you are throwing at it. But as has been said, be sure to put the proper legs under neath- 4" steel pipe with a 1/4 "plate top and bottom (fasten to concrete with lugs) will be all you need
     
  2. Kevin, if your beam is 8-12 feet off the garage floor, when you go to use the beam to pull an engine or whatever, just put in 2 temporary supports on either side of your work area. You will feel safer and your mind will be at ease - case closed. I did this for many years using dbl 2x4 posts in my old garage - nary a problem. I even pulled the body off of a car once using 2-2x10x14ft nailed and glued together as my beam 10' off the floor, attached enough to the ceiling to support its own weight (making sure it also had no side-to-side motion). Then, when pulling an engine, I used 2 removable/temporary dbl 2x4 posts. It held almost 1500 lbs no problem.

    Hope this helps .....

    Sorry Kevin, I misread your post and I'm still not sure if you are talking about supporting the loft floor with the beams or hauling stuff up to the loft with something attached to the beam to hoist it. If you are looking to use the beam to haul the stuff up to the loft and your loft area/roof construction, is not of truss design, I've used a 3" HD galvanized pipe secured between the collar ties w/HF's electric 1K hoist strapped to it. Say you haul up a rear, have a couple moving dollies ready to accept the rear in your loft area (again HF items - their smaller dollies are great for rears w/backing plates) - makes it easy to move things around once up there. The temporary weight on the collar ties, if securely fastened (mine are 2x12s) tot eh roof supports will not harm/hurt anything.

    If you are looking to support the loft floor, once you get your heavier items up to the loft, put them on the dollies and roll them to the outer perimeter of the loft floor and wedge/chock the wheels "just in case" you get a shaker or something that might undermine things. I never thought much about this before until we had the earthquake in Mineral, VA - although about 65 miles away, many homes in my area have sustained damage and I would not want something falling from a loft and crashing into anything.

    I've attached a rather dark pic but you can see the suspended milk crate which has at least 200lbs of stuff in it going up to my "cat-walk" storage area 8' up off the floor in my garage. This little setup has worked out great ....
     

    Attached Files:

    Last edited: Jan 5, 2012
  3. SmoKerch
    Joined: May 23, 2011
    Posts: 123

    SmoKerch
    Member

    Dang, everyone knows you are supposed to drop a freshly machined and rebuilt shortblock onto the floor from about 8', and then come here and ask about strengthening the beam.

    Geez, kids nowadays.
     
  4. I'd go with steel wool, maybe some galvanized wire mesh and liquid nails, then the skim coat.

    Bob
     
  5. coolbreeze1340
    Joined: Aug 18, 2009
    Posts: 1,340

    coolbreeze1340
    Member
    from Indiana

    I agree with 1ton! If you are storing stuff in the loft AND using the beam for rigging I would go heavier or place in supports like another member suggested. Keep in mind, a 750lb SBC sometimes requires a lot more than that to remove it from a car. You would be surprised at how quickly a load increases just to break free a little rusty, missed bolt, or interference between two parts and you would hate to drop your loft and stuff on top of your ride!

    Example: I lift equipment that weighs 38,000 lbs very often. The equipment has 4 legs with feet that are about 10" by 6". In the winter with the feet sitting on the dirt I have seen weights in excess of 50,000 lbs to break the equipment free from being frozen to the ground. Because of this we changed our lift to one corner at a time until all corners are free and then we hook the rigging and lift the piece whole. Anytime you are playing with anything that weighs more than you do be very careful, there is a reason the all lifting gear is rated at 1/5 of the point of failure!
     
  6. Naw the proper way it to first get a couple of Rosebuds and heat as large an area as possible red hot. This will in effect keep it from sheering, you don't want it to sheer you know.

    Then get some epoxy and epoxy some window screen over the holes and glass over that. Hell everyone know that Fiberglass is some pretty tough stuff that make cars out of it ya know. There is also an added benefit, you don't have to worry about it rusting in thse mid west winters.
     
    Last edited: Jan 5, 2012
  7. RADustin
    Joined: Aug 16, 2011
    Posts: 192

    RADustin
    Member
    from Louisiana

    we just did this at my dads new garage. I beam spanning 29' to avoid a center post and allow for a 2500# gantry.

    Me and my brother did all the calcs( both of us ME).

    The beam supports the building and provides a hoist point. It is held up with 4" schedule 40 and has tabs that bolt it to every other 2x12.

    I know the pics suck...
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]

    I don't remember what size it is but it is wide flange.
     
  8. ..... I am thinking this thread already qualifies for "Thread of The Year" .... maybe it deserves a sticky ! LOL
     
  9. wagoon78
    Joined: Nov 13, 2008
    Posts: 361

    wagoon78
    ALLIANCE MEMBER

    legit engineer here. do it all day.

    Sounds like a W6x12. If it is just laying around, I would assume A36 mat'l. Allowable uniform load of around 580 plf and based on 4ft of trib that is 145 psf total load. Wood joists and plywood are less than 10 psf so that puts you at 135 psf live load capacity. Commercial light storage is 125 psf so you should be fine. At the full load of 580 plf, the beam will deflect about 0.8 inches.

    Using it as a trolly beam is fine, but if you want to lift something real heavy, move the heavy stuff stored above towards the end of the beam or take the heavy stuff off the platform. If the platform was empty, you could lift over 3000 pounds from the midpoint of the beam.

    Just make sure the floor framing braces the top of the steel beam so the beam can't roll.

    edit: by the way, this is "code compliant" which includes a safety factor of about 1.5. What it can actually take is a lot higher.
     
    Last edited: Jan 5, 2012
  10. Kevin Lee
    Joined: Nov 12, 2001
    Posts: 7,582

    Kevin Lee
    Super Moderator
    Staff Member

    Just to be clear here we are talking about two separate beams. One for the loft and one for the gantry. (which will be considerably shorter – in the neighborhood of 8 to 10') I will not be hoisting stuff from the loft support.
     
  11. wagoon78
    Joined: Nov 13, 2008
    Posts: 361

    wagoon78
    ALLIANCE MEMBER

    ok. for an 8ft hoist W6x12 beam you can lift about 6000 lbs of static load at the midpoint. when hoisting they usually factor the weight by 15-25% so you could safely assume 4500 lbs.
     
  12. Alex S. L.
    Joined: Sep 22, 2010
    Posts: 75

    Alex S. L.
    BANNED

    It is good to see some engineers Plying their trade on internet forums.

    i'm in my third year of civil engineering right now.
     
  13. NoSurf
    Joined: Jul 26, 2002
    Posts: 4,461

    NoSurf
    Member

    The profession of structural engineering has been characterized as "the art of molding materials we do not wholly understand into shapes we cannot precisely analyze, so as to withstand forces we cannot really assess, in such a way that the public does not really suspect the extent of our ignorance." Dr A.R. Dykes


    Is this thing built yet?
     
  14. derbydad276
    Joined: May 29, 2011
    Posts: 1,336

    derbydad276
    Member

    my head hurts!!! too much thinkin ... not enough beer!

    if your going to use it for a loft you should be fine
    if want to use it as a hoist 14' is too wide of a span
     

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