Steel Beam Level Issue

[djaychela]

I'm (slowly) doing a ground floor extension to my chalet bungalow. I've got a builder who's done the blockwork and prepping for the steels to be put in, and they are now in place. There are two 3.5m (ish) 152x152 beams in place. The SE specced a flat plate join between the two (with two M12 bolts), but the fabricators changed this for a square plate on the end of each beam, with 4 M16 bolts instead, which the SE was fine with.

However, on installation, one of the beams sits on two padstones, and it sits flat (i.e. across the web, front to rear). The other beam (whcih is bolted to this one, and just sits on one padstone at the other end) doesn't sit flat. It's about 5mm "in" at the top - i.e. if you're stood at the back of the house, looking at the two beams, the bottoms are both in line, but the top of one is further back, so it's rotated. Both beams are perfectly level along their lengths - again, within a millimetre across the 7 metres in total they span. The bolt holes were very tight (I gave him a hand doing this part of it), and I think the misalignment is because of this.

The builder is happy with this, but I'm not sure about it. While for the most part his work has been good (and very accurate - the 5 metre beam for the bifolds was millimetre perfect with no shimming needed at all), there have been some elements I've had to get re-done, and while fitting the steel, the centre padstone moved, creating a crack in the mortar (it had been in place for maybe 5 days before they were fitted), which then disappeared when the beam was in place. He says that's fine as the load is only downwards on it, but again, I'm not convinced. I feel like I should have done something about it at the time, but TBH I've been somewhat overwhelmed with work and other issues and it's only now I've come to look at it more closely that it's bothering me.

I'm concerned over these two issues - despite having gone ahead and fitted the roof joists for the GF roof, which I'd have to remove or at least trim to get the beam in question in place.

I want to call BC tomorrow and get them to look it over, but they usually take a few days to respond, let alone visit, and he's due back tomorrow to start putting the blockwork around the joists, so I think this needs to be sorted before that happens.

Sorry for the lack of pictures, I'm away this weekend. Any thoughts appreciated, as ever.

 

[^woody^]

All the inspector will do is check a beam is there, on padstones. Nothing else.

I don't understand your description of the problem.

 

[djaychela]

Sorry, I didn't make it clear. The beam is level left to right (along its length) but its not level back to front - it's tilted so that if you were looking at the end of it, the web would not be vertical, it would be about 2 degrees off.

 

[tony1851]

Sorry, I didn't make it clear. The beam is level left to right (along its length) but its not level back to front - it's tilted so that if you were looking at the end of it, the web would not be vertical, it would be about 2 degrees off.

That will not be an issue - seriously - forget about it!
The crack under the padstone is also not an issue; padstones take gravity load and any crack in the mortar below is irrelevant.

 

[djaychela]

Thanks Tony, that's a relief. I guess it's one of those things that you need someone with experience to tell you it's OK... Much appreciated.