While I have built lots of buildings with standard floor joists, I am wanting to build a Chalet type home with a loft and exposed beams on the first floor.
Is there a span table for something like 4 x 10 beam?
Thanks
Mike
You're heading towards the deep end of the pool so they don't have anything really easy to use.
"Wood Structural Design Data", WSDD, at awc.org has span tables based on wood strength properties which can be found in their "Supplement" to the NDS. Both are free downloads and they are the code referenced source. Kind of clunky but it'll get you there.
I have some beam and column calcs here;
timbertoolbox.com
This one might be the easiest to use if you aren't familiar with design strength values, and if it has your species.
http://www.timbertoolbox.com/Calcs/ddsimplebeam.html
Those design values are good up through 4" thick, at 5" and thicker another set of lower strength values kicks in. For your 4x10 you can click the 2x10, single member boxes to get the right adjustment factors to work in the background.
Don't forget that as spans increase between joists the T&G also needs to get thicker and be checked for strength as well, see R503.1 in the IRC.