Any one of our Anchoring Specialists in the field on any given anchoring project will always say you need 20 inches of wall on each side of an opening in order for helical beaming (also known as helical masonry beaming) to work.
On a recent job with John Montecalvo, one of our Technical Specialists, there were 20 inches and then some on the left side of the opening, but not on the right side. That was no problem for notoriously creative problem-solver Montecalvo.
"What we did was we cut into the side wall to pick up the 20 inches," he said. "When I gave a presentation on Helical Masonry Beaming to ICRI in Massachusetts and showed these photos, and it really blew them away. They didn’t know something like this could be done."
He also emphasizes the two 2 x 4s in the photos are for precaution only.
"They're there to stabilize the three courses of brick below the beaming," he says. "They are not there to support the wall. You will also see if you look closely that we also used Stitch-Ties in the beaming area."
