Do I need to supplement my floor joists or steel girder for a remodel?

Question

I am doing a kitchen/den remodel and spoke to an engineer beforehand about taking out some walls (he said it's safe to do as they aren't load supporting). On his way out he said I should get someone to figure out if my current remodel plans will need to supplement an 8" steel girder that has a clear span of around 19'. Off the girder are 16' floor joists spanning around 14' to the supports along the outside of the house. His concern was a large island I'm putting in. No problem, I will get the assessment. But I started thinking on this a bit. Even with the large island, I'm replacing everything in the current kitchen with lighter materials. I'm pulling up hardwood (3.1 psf) and installing luxury vinyl plank (1.8 psf); replacing 995 pounds of granite with 365 pounds of Corian solid surface; replacing 13 base cabinets with 14 base cabinets; and removing two walls. I tried telling him this but he was just focusing on the 'large island'. At one point he talked about supplementing the I beam, but then he talked bout supplementing the floor joists. Anyway, I drew up an illustration and I just wanted to get some opinions on if I'm thinking of this clearly or not. I have more detailed stuff with measurements, but these were just quick things to show what I'm doing. I added the I beam location in blue and approximate location of 16" OC floor joists. I know one of those joists around the middle is a triple joist (engineered?), the rest measure exactly 8.875" x 1.5". I haven't looked for wood species stamps yet as the basement is mostly finished and the utility room is really tight. He said the I beam is a W8x18.

Here's a link to the pics and totals of the weights going in and going out: https://i.stack.imgur.com/6Aflk.jpg

Thanks for any help you can provide! I plan to call around for some engineers to come out and look, but my brain will not let me rest until I know if I'm right or not, lol.

Answer 1

So the kitchen was originally 10’-8” wide and now the load is spread out over 13’-4” and you’re using an unusually sized floor joists. Hmmm… we’ll, the “2x8’s at 16” oc spanning 14’ will support about 80 lbs. per square foot (psf) and applies a load of about 560 plf on the steel beam. Code requires 40 psf plus dead load… which seems adequate, except for the refrigerator load. I’d add a joist for the refrigerator. The 8” steel beam can support about 10,000 plf for a 19’ span, which all seems adequate…just check the connections and bearing points.