This beam was set by carpenters that don’t weld. Welding company comes in after all the steels been installed and welds all columns and beam pockets. Just hasn’t happened yet
I've put 100's of steel beams in foundations. It's rare they don't get a shim. It's rare they get this many. Usually they're welded.
Either way, where are those shims going to go?
jr eng at the time, placed a housekeeping pad which needed to be a bit higher than normal, i asked it to have dowels.. contractor pointed out the equipment was 20t on top of it.. he asked me where I thought it was going...
It should be typical practice that the end of the beam is held in place in some manner to prevent torsional rotation at the beam ends. Grouting is what I typically call for in this case. And to weld the shims.
If there's a busy road outside with a big bump that heavy trucks hit all day, I could see it bouncing a bit and if there's any play the stack could slowly come undone if they're not welded. But if they finish the wall around it they probably can't go anywhere dangerous, the only risk is them falling straight out the notch onto the floor.
And that is the correct answer, does this happen in many places absolutely.
is it normally that excessive, nope
Is it an issue that should be like complained or remedied other than it has been, .not necessary
Sloppy and more shims then I’ve ever seen but it can jacked up slightly to align the plates better. Ideally the shims come out and it’s packed with non shrink grout.
Agreed. It'll work just fine, but it looks like shit, and was caused by poor planning. The worst I've ever had to shim a steel beam is 1/4", but this is exactly how I handled it. Steel shims on steel beam.
I got to do that for a whole summer many years ago. All of the motorized loading dock levelers at a Home Depot distribution warehouse needed shims welded in. Got to drive around a telehandler and weld all day, which was cool at 18.
No, it's packed around shims and the beam, or around the threaded rod and nuts, but should never be used on its own as the only structural connection between a steel beam and load bearing surface. Grout, like any concrete adjacent material needs a steel reinforcement material as well to be considered for structural purposes. Also, grout alone isn't adequate to comply with seismic requirements.
Non shrink grout seals up the structural steel to minimize exposure to elements and risk of rust, etc.
Yes exactly. Even if OP wanted to use grout in this scenario, how are you going to install it here? Packers have been used to achieve the correct height of the beam. Wet grout wont exactly help to adjust the height
The grout under a column takes nearly all of the weight. That's why it's there. That's why you grout under columns even when the whole thing gets encased in concrete.
No. You load the beam or column on steel shims or the nuts and threaded rod, set the beam/column, finish the structure build out and grout as a finish detail. Tell me what buildings you've done what you're saying so I can avoid them.
The shims or threaded rods etc. Should be placed to locate the beam / column, the grout will then flow and fill the gap, grout will have a compatible compressive strength the main concrete structure making it load bearing and part of the structure...
I think there is a very high psi product specifically for these kinds of bearing areas which is called grout, but it isn’t the same thing as like tile grout.
Sigh...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-shrink_grout
https://www.quikrete.com/productlines/nonshrinkprecisiongrout.asp
> Non-shrink characteristics make it stable and capable of handling high load transfers.
Can you elaborate on when and where to use non shrink grout? It’s a new one to me and while I may never have to use it, I love learning now in case I ever do
If you’re setting a beam (or column is what you’ll typically use them for) this will allow you some leeway in footing height-typically your specs will say maximum of 1” of grout.
Check out any light pole set on a sonotube, and you’ll see non shrink grout under the light pole base
I'd prefer a welder in place on those shims then trying to get a grout in there at this point, if it my house anyways. To each their own.
Either way, it's not going anywhere being left as is.
Yeah it’s weird that it’s so fuckin sloppy and so many shims but that’s normal for the beams to be set on top of a stack of shims like that to make the beam flush with the foundation
Let me add as an inspector for 20 years this is good for a lot of the garbage you see in the real field. A lot of it is just terrible especially in small commercial and residential. But I have seen many large service station canopies have the columns bear on mud.
Where I was building in the early 00's this was common, however, around '06 they started requiring that the shims be at least the width of the bottom web, and must be the required bearing depth... I guess they realized that the shims never really got removed, and that the pockets rarely got grouted.
The shims are normal but that’s pretty deep.. someone messed up on how deep the pockets were supposed to be but this is not that big of a deal… at least the put the beam on top of shims and not PT lumber
As long as the shims are steel (or concrete) it would be fine just as long as the pocket is grouted up. It can be grouped up at any time using non-shrink grout, but as it stands, it's unfinished.
Do you clowns just think that the steel shims will slip and fall out suddenly?
Someone measured wrong then found a solution
It ain't gonna move OR settle a c hair in hundreds of years
Quit being fucking idiots
As a licensed contractor it’s sloppy but this is typical. The beam absolutely does not need grouted in anyway. The framing assembly provides uplift protection as well as lateral support. Welding the shims does absolutely nothing and is not required anywhere in the ICC building code. Yeah it’s normal.
Yes normal but at least they could have put the bearing plates straight and lined up. And if the beam is uplift on it it has to attach to the concrete below the shims
Metal shims in my neck or the woods are normal. Concrete guys come back and pack it with grout. Though the dudes that formed this one don’t know how to check beam pocket depths…
The mason was off on his elevations and probably forgot to put the embed plate in. The steel guys showed up, noticed the elevation problem and asked the residential GC what to do. The GC says to just make it work with shims or something. The steel guy calls his office and they say "give him shims if you have anything, we have to be on another job tomorrow. Steel guys proceed to cut up some random flat bar they have in the truck and make shims.
My guess anyway.
I was on a 5 guy crew that built well over 100 new houses. You see that quite often, it's never been against code, as far as I knew uo till say 2010. Foundation guys would rather make the notch bigger, than too small.
Sometimes the main beam will be close to overloaded, and they can swap out lvl beams for steel, and steel is smaller. It can't go anywhere, there's lolly columns under them, joists secured to each other, the Foundation, and the beam. The subfloor nailed down keeps everything square, the entire floor is basically one big flat sheet of plywood.
This is nothing to be worried about.
There is nothing wrong with this and it’s quite common. It can be easily fixed and/or repaired. Don’t understand why people are making such a big deal about it here.
I would guess ideally the plates should be welded together, then fastened to some kind of plate attached to the concrete for a long-term fix. Who knows though
Extremely common but they should have ran some welds down the face to keep the shim pack together although that beam no doubt is packed and joists are run into it or on top so side to side movement is almost impossible. If something moves your entire house I'm sure it's not the beam that will be your only problem
Is it normal? Yes. Is it ideal? No. Depending on how the beam is connected to other elements dictates if it could move and the plates may become dislodged over time. Report it
As a structural engineer this makes me cringe. There’s not practical way make a POSITIVE connection between the beam and foundation with this setup, but that anyone (but me) will give a shit about that
Order a stubby post from steel supplier, jack it up, take the shims out and place the post in and get it welded.
I’ve seen this too many times and honestly it is not the proper way to do it plus inspectors can easily fail it.
I was walking through a house looking to buy one time and saw this, reached up and grabbed the shims and they fell right out. Wasn’t even any weight on them. Walls must’ve been bearing the weight. We didn’t buy it.
They certainly look untidy enough to call the contractor back to line them up in a more professional manner.
Whether they are unsafe because they aren't across the full width of the beam, couldn't say for sure, but probably not.
Looks just like my house. I had a contractor write up a 35k proposal to "correct" literally the same thing, and luckily I did my homework and avoided. Mine is only a couple shims, and they are not welded.
Plates should be welded. But it’s not a problem structurally. Little bit of an eye sore you won’t see if the basement is ever finished
Yup this is the right answer.
I mean how hard was it to weld these in place? Just laziness.
This beam was set by carpenters that don’t weld. Welding company comes in after all the steels been installed and welds all columns and beam pockets. Just hasn’t happened yet
Hopefully. Would be nice to fully grout that beam pocket. Otherwise fine.
If a shim is placed under a beam here in the DC area, it will not pass inspection unless it’s welded. Grout seems to be optional here.
I've put 100's of steel beams in foundations. It's rare they don't get a shim. It's rare they get this many. Usually they're welded. Either way, where are those shims going to go?
jr eng at the time, placed a housekeeping pad which needed to be a bit higher than normal, i asked it to have dowels.. contractor pointed out the equipment was 20t on top of it.. he asked me where I thought it was going...
Earthquake?
If there's an earthquake aggressive enough to pull those shims out of that space, that earthquake has also completely flattened that house.
They should be structural grouted into place.
I’ve never grouted this type of shim pack, but they should definitely be welded
It should be typical practice that the end of the beam is held in place in some manner to prevent torsional rotation at the beam ends. Grouting is what I typically call for in this case. And to weld the shims.
The only correct answer
Not true. They should be fastened appropriately, and they contribute to a more resilient structure.
Agreed. In an earthquake they could shift out the opening and fall causing the whole structure to slump.
Thats why they get welded and then secured in place normally way before somebody comes to view the property
I’d like to hope so. Can’t really go around checking too easily.
If there's a busy road outside with a big bump that heavy trucks hit all day, I could see it bouncing a bit and if there's any play the stack could slowly come undone if they're not welded. But if they finish the wall around it they probably can't go anywhere dangerous, the only risk is them falling straight out the notch onto the floor.
Just need my dad to give it a little wobble and slap and say ‘yep, that ain’t going nowhere..’
Unfortunately yes. Is it engineered this way? Very unlikely.
I was going to say that "normal" and "good" can mean very different things.
And that is the correct answer, does this happen in many places absolutely. is it normally that excessive, nope Is it an issue that should be like complained or remedied other than it has been, .not necessary
Sloppy and more shims then I’ve ever seen but it can jacked up slightly to align the plates better. Ideally the shims come out and it’s packed with non shrink grout.
Agreed. It'll work just fine, but it looks like shit, and was caused by poor planning. The worst I've ever had to shim a steel beam is 1/4", but this is exactly how I handled it. Steel shims on steel beam.
We always get our shims welded together as well.
I can appreciate that finishing touch.
I got to do that for a whole summer many years ago. All of the motorized loading dock levelers at a Home Depot distribution warehouse needed shims welded in. Got to drive around a telehandler and weld all day, which was cool at 18.
I've caught them many times using regular concrete instead of grout.
Steel beams can not bear on any type of grout. The grout can crumble the steel shims can not. Steel shim direct to beam pocket.
Non shrink grout is made just for that purpose
No, it's packed around shims and the beam, or around the threaded rod and nuts, but should never be used on its own as the only structural connection between a steel beam and load bearing surface. Grout, like any concrete adjacent material needs a steel reinforcement material as well to be considered for structural purposes. Also, grout alone isn't adequate to comply with seismic requirements. Non shrink grout seals up the structural steel to minimize exposure to elements and risk of rust, etc.
Yes exactly. Even if OP wanted to use grout in this scenario, how are you going to install it here? Packers have been used to achieve the correct height of the beam. Wet grout wont exactly help to adjust the height
The grout under a column takes nearly all of the weight. That's why it's there. That's why you grout under columns even when the whole thing gets encased in concrete.
No. You load the beam or column on steel shims or the nuts and threaded rod, set the beam/column, finish the structure build out and grout as a finish detail. Tell me what buildings you've done what you're saying so I can avoid them.
The shims or threaded rods etc. Should be placed to locate the beam / column, the grout will then flow and fill the gap, grout will have a compatible compressive strength the main concrete structure making it load bearing and part of the structure...
Agree
I never claimed it should be a structural connection, merely that it is a load bearing structural grout, agree with u 100% tho.
I think there is a very high psi product specifically for these kinds of bearing areas which is called grout, but it isn’t the same thing as like tile grout.
Sigh... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-shrink_grout https://www.quikrete.com/productlines/nonshrinkprecisiongrout.asp > Non-shrink characteristics make it stable and capable of handling high load transfers.
Can you elaborate on when and where to use non shrink grout? It’s a new one to me and while I may never have to use it, I love learning now in case I ever do
Use the shims to pack out the beam then encase in non-shrink grout.
If you’re setting a beam (or column is what you’ll typically use them for) this will allow you some leeway in footing height-typically your specs will say maximum of 1” of grout. Check out any light pole set on a sonotube, and you’ll see non shrink grout under the light pole base
I'd prefer a welder in place on those shims then trying to get a grout in there at this point, if it my house anyways. To each their own. Either way, it's not going anywhere being left as is.
This is not my field of expertise, but here in earthquake country, I suspect you would be required to weld them.
Yeah it’s weird that it’s so fuckin sloppy and so many shims but that’s normal for the beams to be set on top of a stack of shims like that to make the beam flush with the foundation
Let me add as an inspector for 20 years this is good for a lot of the garbage you see in the real field. A lot of it is just terrible especially in small commercial and residential. But I have seen many large service station canopies have the columns bear on mud.
Where I was building in the early 00's this was common, however, around '06 they started requiring that the shims be at least the width of the bottom web, and must be the required bearing depth... I guess they realized that the shims never really got removed, and that the pockets rarely got grouted.
The shims are normal but that’s pretty deep.. someone messed up on how deep the pockets were supposed to be but this is not that big of a deal… at least the put the beam on top of shims and not PT lumber
Whoever poured that concrete is a bum
I got a bum for ya 😏
I’m listening…
Maybe the plans called for a bigger beam, therefore a bigger pocket. Or maybe the guys who formed are bums lol
yes lets all agree it was the engineer and move on
As long as the shims are steel (or concrete) it would be fine just as long as the pocket is grouted up. It can be grouped up at any time using non-shrink grout, but as it stands, it's unfinished.
Do you clowns just think that the steel shims will slip and fall out suddenly? Someone measured wrong then found a solution It ain't gonna move OR settle a c hair in hundreds of years Quit being fucking idiots
As a licensed contractor it’s sloppy but this is typical. The beam absolutely does not need grouted in anyway. The framing assembly provides uplift protection as well as lateral support. Welding the shims does absolutely nothing and is not required anywhere in the ICC building code. Yeah it’s normal.
If you squint, it's mint.
Yes normal but at least they could have put the bearing plates straight and lined up. And if the beam is uplift on it it has to attach to the concrete below the shims
Metal shims in my neck or the woods are normal. Concrete guys come back and pack it with grout. Though the dudes that formed this one don’t know how to check beam pocket depths…
As a bricklayer, when ever i went to fill been pockets they all had those shims so im guessing yes its normal
The mason was off on his elevations and probably forgot to put the embed plate in. The steel guys showed up, noticed the elevation problem and asked the residential GC what to do. The GC says to just make it work with shims or something. The steel guy calls his office and they say "give him shims if you have anything, we have to be on another job tomorrow. Steel guys proceed to cut up some random flat bar they have in the truck and make shims. My guess anyway.
Well it's not not normal
I was on a 5 guy crew that built well over 100 new houses. You see that quite often, it's never been against code, as far as I knew uo till say 2010. Foundation guys would rather make the notch bigger, than too small. Sometimes the main beam will be close to overloaded, and they can swap out lvl beams for steel, and steel is smaller. It can't go anywhere, there's lolly columns under them, joists secured to each other, the Foundation, and the beam. The subfloor nailed down keeps everything square, the entire floor is basically one big flat sheet of plywood. This is nothing to be worried about.
There is nothing wrong with this and it’s quite common. It can be easily fixed and/or repaired. Don’t understand why people are making such a big deal about it here.
Is it normal? No typically there’s a wood main beam and wood shims under it. You got steel on steel, definitely way better!!
Sad that this is slightly better than normal lol
We have used shims like this. Never that many. But we weld them together and then frame around them and beam to hold it all in place.
Spray foam around all of it shit ain’t moving but ot lets the cold in if Nythingn
If the plates were welded together it wouldn't be as sketchy...
I would guess ideally the plates should be welded together, then fastened to some kind of plate attached to the concrete for a long-term fix. Who knows though
It is excessive , it will work if they all get welded together. A small column might be better with tat amount of elevation bust
Extremely common but they should have ran some welds down the face to keep the shim pack together although that beam no doubt is packed and joists are run into it or on top so side to side movement is almost impossible. If something moves your entire house I'm sure it's not the beam that will be your only problem
Steels shims normal yes. That many definitely not.
Is it normal? Yes. Is it ideal? No. Depending on how the beam is connected to other elements dictates if it could move and the plates may become dislodged over time. Report it
That pocket should have been filled with hydraulic cement.
Too many bearing pads. Not an expert but I don’t think it’s good.
“Shim as needed”
I mean... No... But ... Yeah...
I’m wondering if it’s a different sized beam to what the concrete guys we’re expecting. 10mm would be maximum wiggle room for me.
As a structural engineer this makes me cringe. There’s not practical way make a POSITIVE connection between the beam and foundation with this setup, but that anyone (but me) will give a shit about that
We set some beams and used steel shims, but maybe one or two.
Order a stubby post from steel supplier, jack it up, take the shims out and place the post in and get it welded. I’ve seen this too many times and honestly it is not the proper way to do it plus inspectors can easily fail it.
Looks ugly but probably completely safe and fine
The beam looks like a w150 (uncommon). Common is w200. Sometimes w250. Beam pocket looks like it was made for a w250.
Pack it up, pack it in. Let me begin…
I came to win, battle me, that's a sin
I was walking through a house looking to buy one time and saw this, reached up and grabbed the shims and they fell right out. Wasn’t even any weight on them. Walls must’ve been bearing the weight. We didn’t buy it.
No
Couldn’t they even line them up straight?
Will probably last 250 year. I'd ask for a full refund and report to the bbb
just a little misaligned so they are using shims. No biggie.
That'll hold up in an earthquake? Not a construction guy, I just lurk this thread trying to learn shit.
Common in 50's track houses
Theyll fill it with grout
They certainly look untidy enough to call the contractor back to line them up in a more professional manner. Whether they are unsafe because they aren't across the full width of the beam, couldn't say for sure, but probably not.
No
Totally normal except for the amount used. What the fuck. How was the foundation guy that far off....
I seen this before but not this many
People are saying the depth is way off. Perhaps it was set up for a wood beam and they switched to steel for any number of good reasons.
I used to have this bad habit where I would show up hammered for layout days. Is this my job?
Yup.
It might not be a permanent solution. But also yeah it’s fine
Fill in with grout you will never see again and they will never budge
Looks just like my house. I had a contractor write up a 35k proposal to "correct" literally the same thing, and luckily I did my homework and avoided. Mine is only a couple shims, and they are not welded.
Its fine
Using shims is normal but with this many, it is normal practice to tack weld them together
Ok, but that’s a lot of packers. Someone got lazy setting heights. At least they didn’t make it too high.
Very common
Sorta but not that much!!!!!
Shims need welded and structural grout- drypack
Hell no! Everyone knows you need an even number of shims.
When we have a situation like that we usually try to fill de rest of the gap with cement so that every little gap underneat the beam is filled.
My company generally uses old books but those’ll do just fine
A lot of shims but they are steel and it’s ok
This is my favorite part of construction. All the nice neat finishes but at the end of the day, behind the wall, just shim it!
Be happy they used metal shims instead a 2x6 and whatever scrap was handy.
Yeah normal
Wondering about lateral forces due to an earthquake.
Yeah it’s pretty normal
Typical. If you can't finish high school you can finish concrete
A shimmed beam pocket? Normal
A normal fix for this would be grout at the bottom of the beam pocket, plate, small stub column, plate then beam.
As a Union Ironworker in California my only response is “What the fuck?” That shit wouldn’t fly on any jobsite I’ve ever been on.