basement support beam

[jonridgeway]

I am finishing my basement of a 4 piece modular home that is 28 X 35 that is on a basement. It has a garage with and family room off the back that connects to the house thats on a craw space.

The problem I have is that I have lolly columns every 6 feet in my basement supporting the 2 pieces of the modular as they come together. Each modualer is 14ft wide. I want to remove the lolly columns for a span of about 18 ft to have a big rec room in my basement that is not cut in half. the rec room would be about 18X28. The ceiling height is only 7ft 8 inches off the slab.

THE QUESTION
Is it possible to remove the 2x10's and plywood that is holding the floor joices up and insert a steel beam into the ceiling. Where the modular comes together there is about 3 2/10 samwiched inbetween plywood that the lolly colomns are holding up and the floor joices are hanging off. I do not want to put the steel beam under the joice. This would lower my ceiling below 7 ft. I have asked about LVL but that would have to have 4 16 inch LVL and it is to big. Any suggestions

[David Oxhandler]

Anything is possible. BUT eliminating the support under the center line and changing the joist system will require lifting the home to install an engineered foundation system. That can be prohibitively expensive. Contact several professional installers in your area to see how they would do it and what they would charge

[trmimo]

You need an engineer rather than an installer to evaluate this issue. Especially if it snows where you live. If the span in question coincides with an open span in the marriage wall up stairs, it may not be that bad. If one of the posts is at the end of an opening between the modules, you're stuck with it where it is. Remember, with a modular home 50% of the roof load is carried by the lolly columns vs no roof load on the lolly columns of the typical site built home. That's why it takes so many.