On Wed, 18 Mar 2009 19:49:44 -0500, Lloyd E. Sponenburgh wrote:

cavelamb fired this volley in
m:

My shop / hangar was made with 4" square pipe posts and 10" purlin
thirty feet long - unsupported. But I never hung much weight from
them.



Some time, look up the dead/live load capabilities of a 3-1/2" x 12"
lam-beam. You'd be amazed.

Consider, they use them to span garage door openings (supporting roof
structures) up to 22'.


The I-beam is $75.

I know sort-of about the laminated beams; put a pair of 'em in the kitchen
where someone had taken out a wall 40 years ago. The single 2x10 they put
in had sagged about 2" in the middle...didn't help that on one end it was
notched to about 3" height to sit on the top plate - not a stud; and one
the other about 1/2 inch was on a stud, that was all.

When I saw the state it was in one of the first things I did was tell the
teenager not to do any jumping on the floor in the room above - not that he
had, but he's a teenager, they're unpredictable.