CO question installed support beam

[Cynthia Ng]

Hello BP professionals 

I need some professional advise here; im rehabbing a foreclosure house in City Poughkeepsie NY; we passed electrical inspection but during plumbing inspection the inspector caught the beam my husband and I installed without proper footing because we did it for extra support it’s a 150 old house but we didn’t remove any beams or headers 

Now the inspector asking us to get the professional to replace it but I don’t have the funding to do it

Can I just simply remove the beam? 

I need the CO to close on refi !!

Please advise 

Thank you

Cynthia 

[Jon Holdman]

A structural engineer will probably cost you a few hundred dollars and can advise you how to install the beam properly.  If you put it in, you must have seen something that concerned you and that you though needed to be supported.  The basic trick is there is some load on that beam.  That load needs to be transferred to the ground.  That usually means the ends of the beam need to be on posts.  And the bottoms of those posts need to be on something.  In one situation where I did this, the engineer had me double up floor joists so the posts were supported.  Sometimes an engineer will produce drawings and stamp them and you submit those to the city.  In this particular case, the engineer looked at what I wanted to do, advised me, then inspected the work afterward and wrote a letter stating it was done correctly.  I submitted that to the city.  Building inspectors won't generally advise you as to exactly how to deal with the situation.  Only that what you've done is not acceptable.  In structural situations, they want an engineer to tell you what has to be done.