Structural Work - Elite Building And Construction In Cardiff

Rolled Steel Joist - RSJ 

About RSJ's

A rolled steel Joist RSJ for short is a large steel beam commonly installed for structural work when supporting something above. It is used due to its capacity on holding heavy loads above and not being able to bend or give way. All RSJ's should be designed by a structural engineer who will give a design and calculation of the RSJ. Which then you can have made to there requirements. A Structural Engineer might also give you dimensions for various other things which you need to adhere too. This may include Pad Stone Sizes, How much Span the RSJ needs to be sat on Pad Stone and how much of the wall you can take down safely. As Elite Builders Cardiff is a Professional Building Contractor Company in Cardiff we always follow guidance from our architects and engineers which in turn gets signed off by the correct building inspector departments. 

Usual Places RSJ's are Installed 

We usually fit these heavy load bearing beams when we are knocking down a wall to hold up the above house. Usually when we are doing an extension to a house. People imagine there to be very little work involved but due to the fact of what needs to be done it usually takes Elite Builders days to a week to install an RSJ. Other common places were we have installed them in the past can be in Loft Conversions When we need to put a Dormer Roof on to the House this gives the Flat roof an Ideal Structure Load bearing platform to be sat on. We have also put them in the Floor area's when doing Loft Conversions as the nature of the loft won't always allow us to run joists giving us shorter spans for the adjoining bearing of joists. This is all to make head height in the loft possible of 2.1 Metres for building regulations. Without the support of the RSJ, we would have to have used larger joists which would not have made it possible to reach the 2.1m requirement. 

How Are RSJ Beams Supported 

Rolled Steel Joists are always supported on either end by some sort of load-bearing Pad and sometimes some type of load-bearing support in the centre of the Steel. The usual support is a pad stone which is a high-density concrete which has been compressed with no air inside to give the best strength without weakening when under load. It is not uncommon for Pad stones to have steel rods running through to give better strength if the pad is under stress from the load above. Usually, a Structural Engineer will decide on what size Pad Stone you need. Our Builders in Cardiff, always try to fit pad stones a day before the steel is set in place to give the support of concrete/mortar setting before additionally weight is given to the bed of mortar.