Hello
We are in the process of setting up a garage in a barn. The space is internally 7.20 * 8.40, and the outer walls are about 40 cm thick. Above this space, there is a loft. The loft floor consists of floor beams (150 * 200) with one meter spacing, which rest on the outer walls and a wooden beam (200*200) located in the ceiling of the space that will become a garage. This beam is currently supported by a pillar that we would like to remove. On top of the beams is a plank floor, and the loft floor is insulated with sawdust. The roof trusses rest on the outer walls, and from what we have read in other posts, we do not need to consider the roof's weight in the dimensioning of a beam with this construction. On the loft, we store various things, but no heavy point loads such as cars or similar.
Attached is a document with a sketch of the construction.
We see two different options for how we could remove the pillar.
1) Remove the wooden beam that is currently in the ceiling of the ground floor and replace it with a steel beam. However, it must be about 9 m long, which means it becomes very large and heavy.
2) We leave the wooden beam in place and instead insert a steel beam across the loft and "hang up" the existing wooden beam from above. This steel beam would then rest on the outer walls and need to be about 8 m. The idea is to drill holes through the loft floor, insert long threaded rods, place a metal plate under the existing wooden beam, and pull it upwards. Would this be possible? One problem here is that all the weight becomes a point load in the middle of the steel beam, which also means that a very large beam is required?
How large steel beams would be needed for these constructions? In solution 2, can we assume that the existing wooden beam helps carry some of the weight, or should we completely disregard it in the dimensioning?
