Up it goes!

We purchased a 32-foot laminated veneer lumber (LVL) beam to be sure the apartment floor would be strong enough to support whatever we might put up there. It came in two parts and weighs, both parts total, 432 pounds.

Here're the two parts waiting to be lifted.

When it arrived and I realized I could barely move it, let alone lift it, I started thinking about how to get it up on the posts.

I thought about using slings and pulleys. I was told the roof trusses were designed to support weight from the top, not the bottom, and the lower joints on the trusses might not hold with a large weight hanging on them.

I considered using sections of heavy posts on their sides, in two stacks, relatively close together near the center of the beams. Since the beams are so long, it would be easy to lift an end by pressing on the other end. By pushing down on one side, a helper could easily slide another post section under the raised side, and the process could be repeated again and again, alternating ends, until the beam was just a bit higher then the posts. From there it could be pivoted onto the posts. The whole process would be repeated for the second beam part.

It was a brilliant idea, until... I asked myself, "What's going to keep the tall stack of support boards from falling over when the pile gets more than few feet high and the center of gravity, when the beam is pushed down, shifts to outside the stack?" Answer: Nothing. Scrap that idea.

Finally I though about using a small front end loader that could just lift the darn things and no one would be at risk. We would just provide a little support on opposite ends to keep the beam from tilting as it was lifted. I called my neighbor to see if he knew someone relatively nearby who might bring a machine to the barn. He said he did, and even came by to drive me to meet him.

Just a bit down the highway lives a neighbor who owns Greene County Wood Products, a maker of wooden pallets. They have two loaders, but only one that could get to the barn, a distance on the road of about a mile. Unfortunately that one is over ten feet high and wouldn't fit through the barn door. (We also discussed whether the weight of a loader might crack the concrete floor.)

Instead of saying "No" though, he suggested he would bring a bunch of his workers and we could all just lift it up. Yeehaa! To be ready for them I needed to set up some sturdy supports at each post and get one full half of the barn emptied so the job could be done quickly, but this solution sounded real good to me.

Here's what the barn looked like before the beams went up. Before you ask, that's not clothes drying, it's dirty t-shirts. I got tired of whacking my head on the braces.

Today, right after lunch, he and four of his guys came over. In two minutes the job was done! First the wider "half" goes up, and on. Then the skinny one. Next the smaller beam will be nailed to the larger one to give the beam its full strength. Then the brackets will be installed and nailed to attach and stabilize the completed beam to the posts. Finally today, the lateral braces can be removed (with the dirty laundry).

Tomorrow the joist headers and joists start going on.