Structural Work on Older Tarzana Houses
Structural work for older Tarzana houses built on the right members: LVL or glulam beams, steel post bases and concrete pads sized for each new load.
A laminated veneer lumber beam is usually our choice when a bearing wall comes out of an older Tarzana house. Its veneers are glued under pressure and leave the plant dry, so the beam holds its size. Dry inland air keeps pulling moisture from a green sawn timber for months, and that shrinkage can open a crack along the ceiling. LVL resists that movement, and it can sit flush with the joists beside it.
Sizing the beam and its supports
The engineer sets the depth and width from the span and the load above, which may include part of the roof as well as the ceiling. A short opening can still take solid fir that matches the joists next to it. A long one may need glulam, or a steel plate bolted between two timbers where headroom is tight. Each end of the beam lands on a post, and each post stands on a steel base that lifts its end grain off the concrete so it stays dry. Under the floor, a new concrete pad carries that post down to firm soil.
Keeping the ceiling and its molding
A flush beam means opening a channel in the ceiling plaster along the beam line. We score the edges, keep the plaster on both sides attached and prop it while the joists are hung from the new member with steel hangers. Picture rail and crown along the old wall come off in long lengths, get labeled and go back once the patch has cured. The original ceiling height stays, which keeps the proportions of the rooms intact. Tarzana is part of the City of Los Angeles, and LADBS inspects the pad, the posts and the hangers before the channel is closed.
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Structural Work in Tarzana: common questions
A ceiling line that dips near a wall, plaster cracks that reopen over doorways and a floor that feels uneven when you cross a room are signs to follow up. Under the floor, look for sills without anchors, cripple walls with bare studs and posts that have slid off center on their footings.
LADBS has to permit any structural change in Tarzana. Routine bolting and plywood bracing can often be built from the department's standard plan. Any new beam, whether LVL, glulam or steel, is sized by an engineer, and so are new footings and changes to how the roof load travels down.
Retrofit work stays in the crawlspace, so the rooms above are left alone. A flush beam needs a channel opened in the ceiling, which we keep as narrow as the hangers allow, with the plaster on each side protected and the molding along the old wall reinstalled by hand.
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