Pier foundation question

[rhinchee]

I am restoring an old home in Florida and need to put in a couple of new beams. The existing beams sit on pyramid concrete piers and I want to do something like this for the new beams.

I need a design that will make my local building inspector happy, something showing depth and pier size. I would like to use the preformed piers and shims to firm the support up. My objective is to go from an old 2X12 on 24 inch centers with a 16 foot span to something more like an 8 foot span by adding the beams.

I am doing the work myself and getting a home owner building permit (no contractor required or involved). Can someone point me in the right direction.

This is a single story frame house about 18 inches off the ground. The soil is a good sand, and we have no frost or freeze line.

thanks,

[Rich]

Probably the easiest way to do this is to set something like 16x16x8 concrete pads every 6-8'. With only 18" space you would probably need to dig these down so the tops are flush with the grade you have. Where you have the pads will be where you'll want to have your beam splices. The problem you're going to have is getting that size material down there (6-8' long beams). After you figure out how to get it down there.. you'll want to have some strapping material strap the beams up to the existing joists.. this is just temporary. Before that you'll have to see what the difference is between the joist ends and center as I'm sure you're gong to have to shim up the joists somewhat. I'm not an engineer but I would imagine that 3-2x12's would work well for this application at 8' lengths.. as long as it's only holding the floor. Now that you've got the beams strapped up and you know what your deflection differences are you'll need to cut some posts - 6x6 wood or maybe even a steel column (4x4x3/16TS) being that it's only 6+ inches long. At each of the splices "beat" in one of these posts - attach them in some fashion - such as nailing or drilling through a steel plate (if you use steel posts) and nailing/screwing into the bottom of the beams - don't nail or screw it tight yet. After that everything should be pretty stable. Now you have 2 options of shimming joists. You can either shim each joist individually or shim between the posts and beams. If you go with shimming the beams you'll see why you left it loose in previous step. Once you get it where you want it you should nail the joists to the beam - a single nail is probably sufficient.. and fasten the beams to columns tightly.
Hope that helps or points you in the right direction.