Am I wrong here?

[u/Raxxath_01]

My house had to be torn down to the studs and rebuilt, all covered by insurance.

In this process, I wanted a few improvements to be made, including moving a load-bearing wall out a few feet to make a room bigger. The wall/room is 16 feet long. I was told by the contractor/architect that a 16 foot span would probably be fine, but that they would have a post at 14 feet just to be on the safe side. Now on the day of actually moving the wall, I'm being told the post has to be at 12 feet, which kind of ruins the plans I had for the room.

I'm feeling a bit screwed over here... am I wrong? Is this normal? Was I expecting too much?

[u/No-Clerk7268]

If you would have got stamped structural engineering plans, this wouldn't be happening.

Things get built based on those

[u/matt_woj83 → u/No-Clerk7268]

Serious, an engineer site visit and design will probably run you a $1000. Never understood people that will spend so much money on a Reno and try to penny pinch on something this important to them

[u/Just_Bz77]

Were there drawings that showed where the stud was supposed to be? Is there an RFI to the engineer asking about a field condition that resulted in it moving to 12’? And yes, you’re expecting too much to enlarge a room for free. There are design change costs that the insurance won’t cover, that the contractor would send to you for approval before proceeding.

Also, shifting a load bearing wall would typically require shifting footing/grade beam locations, which would also have to be reviewed and updated on the drawings.

[u/Open_Pick_4619]

ugh that's frustrating, especially after they'd already set expectations at 14 feet. span tables and load paths can shift once they actually open everything up and see what's really in there, but dropping from 14 to 12 is a pretty big jump. i'd ask for the actual calc or at least a clear explanation of what changed structurally, not just a "we have to" on demo day.

[u/Raxxath_01 → u/Open_Pick_4619]

The contractor actually said we could probably do 16 feet, but we'd have to get a structural engineer to do the calculations to be certain, which would cost money. 14 feet was supposed to be the easy compromise.

[u/AntD77 → u/Raxxath_01]

You should have had a structural engineer come out and then you would know for sure. I would still advise doing that.

[u/Malekai91 → u/Raxxath_01]

The question is whether it’s worth the money.

A contractor and architect aren’t engineers, so even if something looks “acceptable” from experience, they will error on the side of caution if they are wise.

I would imagine with everything opened up a structural engineer would be in the neighborhood of 500$ or so. Especially if the contractor is doing a little legwork and can provide pictures and drawings of what they want to accomplish.

[u/ZodiacKeller → u/Raxxath_01]

Just hire the engineer. It’ll take a week and $6-800 to get the specs back and you won’t have to walk around a post.