We are considering buying a house where they have most likely removed a load-bearing wall and replaced it with a beam that is too weak, which has caused it to bend (see attached image).
My thought is to remove the beam and build a load-bearing interior wall instead.
I understand it's impossible to give an exact answer based on an image, but what could this imply? Could building a load-bearing interior wall be sufficient, or could this have affected something beyond the beam, such as rafters etc.?
What could a rough cost estimate be to address this? The beam is approximately 4 meters long.
From the picture, it seems like there's a significant settlement, but maybe the picture "lies" a little... guessing about 2-3 cm settlement otherwise? It seems like they haven't used a glulam beam but only regular planks, or possibly a beam that's too weak. If that's the case, it should be fixable by replacing the beam with one that has the correct load-bearing capacity.
Is there another floor above, or an attic with roof trusses?
If there are roof trusses directly above resting on the beam, then check the roof as well; it's likely settled too. But it should "correct itself" when you install a proper beam.
If there's a floor above, some movements in doors and walls will occur, but that can be fixed with "cosmetic" adjustments
But take my reasoning here as speculation; it needs to be seen in person to give a relevant answer on actions. The cost is difficult to comment on (depends a lot on what you can manage yourself), but if a new beam is all that's needed, it should be manageable.
Try to get someone knowledgeable on site who can check and give a bit more information than I can
Well, that's probably quite close to the truth, I would guess it's a matter of a few centimeters as you wrote.
There is an attic above, so the rafters rest on the beam. The roof was snow-covered now, so it was difficult to determine if it had also settled, but it seems quite likely as you mentioned.
The plan is to build a load-bearing interior wall instead of the beam. Then you might need to push up the "roof" with the studs in the load-bearing interior wall.
A reasonable deflection for a 4 m span is 1/300, i.e., 13 mm. It's a bit odd that the trusses cause such a significant deflection if the attic is unfinished. The year of construction can explain a lot, photos from the attic can explain much.
Yes, it's really strange, I took a quick look at the attic during the viewing and it's unfinished. The only thing on top of the beam besides the rafters and the roof is sawdust insulation and a narrow plank walkway.
