Floor Beam Design

Floor members joists beams and headers are sized to limit bending technically called deflection under dead loads of 10 to 20 pounds per square foot of floor area and live loads of 30 lb ft for bedrooms or 40 lb ft for living areas.

Floor beam design. Floor joists or beams provide the below surface support for the wood subfloor of a room. Some newer homes have manufactured i beam shaped joists. Using floor joist span tables. Floor joists are typically 2 by 8s 2 by 10s or 2 by 12s.

A floor s framework is made up mostly of wooden joists that run parallel to one another at regular intervals. True floor joist span calculations can only be made by a structural engineer or contractor. Don t worry you won t need to do a lot of calculations in determining the size and placement of the structural framing within your house design. How to read floor beam span tables page includes a span calculator.

Continuing on from part 1. This sample table gives minimum floor joist sizes for joists spaced at 16 inches and 24 inches on center o c for 2 grade lumber with 10 pounds per square foot of dead load and 40 pounds of live load which is typical of normal residential construction. Residential structural design vertical structural forces we were about to start learning about floor joist span tables. Wood framing tables can contain a lot of information in one table.

Learn how with this residential structural design tutorial.