Actually we are in what is determined as a non quake zone, but the enginerr I hired, which charged me $ 3,500 for four pages of engineered drawings, and 30 pages of docs. over designed this project. By the time I did all of the work, with material costs, the 18' opening was at a cost of $ 10k. If there is a quake here, the beam and columns will be left in tack. LOL
For any that are interested, I have put a link to the web pages, they are over a year plus out of date, but have the house and cat tree links. On the house page click the "Impatient" red lettered link, and that will show how I managed to get the beam into place.
http://www.numenor.org
