There aren't any loads on the beam other than the floor above. It
essentially runs down the centerline of the family room above. I have
a structural engineer redesigning a lot of stuff for me right now. We
talked about removing the beam, and said it would more than meet code.

But code can allow for some harry construction.... I didn't want to end
up with a bouncy floor at the end of the
remodel.

I ran the span numbers using

http://www.awc.org/calculators/span/...calcstyle.asp?

the existing joists were all #2 Hem-Fir.