I am about to construct a garage with a full second floor to be used
as a home office area.  The garage will be 24' deep and 22' wide.  I
would like to avoid using posts inside the garage to support the
second floor.  I would like to use a built up beam in the 24'
direction down the center made with Laminated Veneer Lumber (LVL) if
possible. The 2x10 floor joists will either sit atop the built up beam
or hang into the beam with joist hangers, depending on the depth of
the beam.  So the span of these floor joists will be 11'. The subfloor
above will be 3/4" plywood with 3/4? hardwood flooring on top.  Again,
this will be used DAILY as a home office area with a few desks, file
cabinets, computer equipment, etc... so I would
guess we are look at a 40psf/20psf load? In any case, can I acheive
this 24' beam span with built up LVL, and if so, how many and what
size?
Thanks!

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Request for Question Clarification by redhoss-ga on 31 Oct 2006 15:03 PST

I have done some preliminary calcs and study on LVL beams. It looks
like you would need two 5 1/4 x 16 LVL beams side by side. I found
info that says that 5 1/4 is the maximum width available. This doesn't
sound very good to me, but may be exactly what you want. You could use
a steel beam and cover it with wood. Let me know what you think and I
will do what you want.