Little House Beams

[Micah]

I have the Little House plans and while pricing the materials at Lowes they dont have the 4x6x14 beams. All they carry are 4x4 and 4x8. Will 4x4 be strong enough to support a 10x14 cabin?

[John Raabe]

No, your beam needs that extra depth.

You can build up your own beams from 2x stock: http://www.countryplans.com/builtupbeam.html

You could use 2 - 2x6 (DF or SP) and 1/2" ply or OSB.

[Micah]

Thx John that answered my next question.

[Micah]

Just to make sure I have this correct before I get to far ahead of myself. I take a piece of 1/2 ply or osb cut it to 6 iches wide and sandwich it between the 2x6? What type of adhesive would you recommend, gorilla glue, liquid nail? Then nail it every 4" to 6".

[MountainDon]

To be exact you cut spacer strips to a width o 5 1/2 inches if the 2x6's are S4S dimensional lumber.

Gorilla or any other polyurethane is a good, although messy choice. I like that better than construction adhesives like Liquid Nails as the poly allows the pieces to be compressed tightly more easily. It'll expand to fill any voids and to make a bigger sticky mess. I have also used resorcinal glue. That's been around for years and needs two parts to be combined before use. It's not as messy as the poly and is completely waterproof.



http://www.jamestowndistributors.com/userportal/show_product.do?pid=2060

[Don_P]

As long as the load is sitting on top of all members of a built up beam the connections are really just holding the parts together, load is not being transferred through the connections from one ply to another. In that case the codebook requires nails every 32" staggered along each edge with a pair at each end, no glue required. That is a minimum.  If the load is hanging on the face of one ply and being transferred to other members behind that (a flush girder), then the connections are bearing load and must be designed as such. Just a little techno info to help understand what's going on.

[Micah]

"To be exact you cut spacer strips to a width o 5 1/2 inches if the 2x6's are S4S dimensional lumber."

I keep forgetting that *x* are not actually *x* I have messed up a few projects because of this.

[Micah]

Im going to be making my pier blocks but I cannot find any of the Simpson brackets. Are there any alternatives?

[MountainDon]

Most of the popular Simopson items are available at either my local Blue or Orange Box stores.

Which one are you looking for?

[Micah]

I was looking for the simpson ebp44 4x4 elevated post base. I did manage to find it listed on lowes.com but they do not carry it. None of the lowes anywhere around me can get it.

[rick91351]

Most hardware stores and lumber yards at least in this area are real good at special orders and some carry a lot great stuff and have very good advice as well.  You might have to think outside the big box stores.  Also you don't always get the best buys in the big box stores.  My local lumber yard always beats them on lumber prices but never on sheet rock nor sheet rock supplies.  Low end cabinets big box by far, high end it is usually about the same.



     

[diyfrank]

White cap have great prices and will ship if you don't have one near.
http://www.whitecap.com/products/137EPB44T