After I got the beam up, I left the temporary wall in place because I hadn’t anchored the bases of the columns. The two outside columns at the front and back sit on a large wood 6×8 sill that sits on top of the brick foundation. I installed holddowns on either side of the columns that were anchored through the wood and into the brick with sleeve anchors.
Hold-down bracket
The middle two columns sit on the steel beam in the basement, directly above the steel columns, thus carrying the weight of the house straight down to the footings. To attach the columns I put angle brackets to either side with a bolt through the column. Dean and his dad came over on Wednesday evening and welded the brackets to the steel beam.
Dean welding
I ran into some difficulty getting the holes drilled for the bolts because the hole is positioned at roughly the same height as the top of the floor joists. The drill couldn’t go in straight, so the holes kept going at an angle. I finally managed to get the hole drilled by using the drill bit with a socket wrench and then pounding the bolt through with a hammer.
Welded column base
With everything secured in place, I no longer have to worry about anything knocking the columns out of place. Last night I took down the rest of the temporary wall that ran parallel to the beam. For the first time we got a look at our first floor opened up, with the exception of the chimney (that will come later).
First floor opened up
You can also see the stair opening that Matt B and I worked on last week. I’ll have a separate post about that once I finish some remaining items on that project. A big thanks to Dean for welding the brackets!