17. STEEL BEAM INSTALL Top Floor

Metal work on this video was performed by Eduardo Santana's team. Cesar Domínguez, Fernando Felipe, Alejandro Peñaloza, René Hurtado
As we did on the bottom floor, we're using horizontal steel beams instead of the traditional concrete and rebar beams often used in house construction in Mexico. There are numerous advantages to this approach given our specific circumstances. We are targeting having the roof in place on this house before the rainy season hits hard in June. The steel saved us a couple of months time. The labor saving is also significant and we purchased all the steel for the house before the prices skyrocketed for all materials, no just for steel. This was not due to any brilliant foresight on our part. Even from the perspective of not knowing about the coming price increases the steel made more sense for this particular project.
For those of you asking about whether we're going to leave the steel beams exposed the answer is no. The finish work on the house will dress it to look like traditional Valle de Bravo construction. We'll install bricks inside the flanges and apply aplanado (stucco) to the surface. The interiors will have wood dropdown ceilings.

[@liferaftn1509]

I like the tidbit format of your videos. I am looking forward to the completion of this project.

[@dwylhq874]

Super insightful as always. 👌

[@alisondblake]

Sunny sanctuary... xoxo

[@classic8054]

What is the size of that beam?

[@kevinkassie8573]

Hi how was the beam fasten on top of the walls? Were they welded on the plates only? Im doing a similar project.

[@buildinginmexico]

We left four pieces of rebar protruding up from the support column where beams will rest. The plates have holes cut to fit over that rebar. Once the plate is in place it is welded to the rebar and the rebar is cut off flush with the plate. The beam is then placed on top and welded to the plate.