removing a jack post

I am currently renovating my basement and wooul like to remove one of the jack posts in the middle of the family room.
The house is a 40 year old bungalow, the basement is 28 foot wide and the posts run down the middle of the house every nine feet. there are currently 3 2X10's supporting the floor above. By removing the post it would increase the span from 9 to 18 feet.

Hope you can help...

Or if you could recommend a structural engineer to answer my question.

thanks brad
toronto, canada

 

I advise is to leave it, unless you are prepared to have an contruction engineer to look at it. These posts support your house, under these posts are footings, the rest of the concrete floor without the footing may not support the weight if its moved. Design your basement around the existing supports. Someone who is an expert on this would have to see it before even considering moving it and even so only moved by the exerts in this field, it is something I could not determine and I assume you don't either. This is the one thing I would advise against. Live with the sapce you have, design around it, the extra space won't do you any good if the upstairs starts caving in on you. By all means finishing the basement can be done by a DIY'er, but don't mess with the support posts.

 

Do not remove that post. If you do, you have a very good chance of having your living room in your basement. Doubling the span will cause structural damage to your home.
Definetly have a professional engineer look at it and do the correct figures. By the way, this will not be a cheap job.

 

you could potentially replace 2x10's with a steel or lamenated beam, then remove the post. However, you would have to construct temp bracing on either side of 2x10's and it potentially could result in some slight settling of walls above, resulting in cracking.

The new beam would have to be sized, based on loading above - which is relatively simple for a structural engineer.

I would not classify this as a DIY project.

Perhaps enclose posts in a new wall? or I just had mine carpeted same as floor.

 

I belive that the beams will support the weight,BUT the best answer that I recieved on this subject that made me not move one of my posts is that each post supports a certain amount of weight. When you remove one, you split that weight between the other posts. I would not gamble that the footer is strong enough to handle the extra weight.
Like he said,work around it.