Speaker A
Today and over this week, we're going to be putting in the massive steels. The steels are absolutely warm. They're disgusting, actually. 300 mil. So, this one's about 550 kilos. The one below it is a bit less than that. And then we've
Watch Izzy the Bricky install massive steel beams in a detailed construction project, showcasing challenges and techniques.
Ask about this video. Answers come from its transcript only — with the timestamp, so you can check them.
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Key Takeaways
- Installing large steel beams requires careful planning, precise measurements, and teamwork.
- Manual handling of heavy steels is challenging without machinery but manageable with proper techniques.
- Structural engineering dictates steel size and placement to accommodate load and deflection.
- Using prop holes and needles ensures safe and stable support during installation.
- Final adjustments and securing methods are crucial for the structural integrity of the build.
What the video covers
- Installation of large steel beams weighing up to 550 kilos in a residential construction project.
- Use of prop holes and needles to support and position the steels accurately.
- Discussion on the challenges of handling heavy steels manually without machinery.
- Explanation of steel specifications, load capacities, and structural engineering considerations.
- Step-by-step process of placing, propping, and bolting steels with acrows and needles.
- Measurement verification to ensure precise fitting of steels and posts within tight tolerances.
- Addressing issues with cavity sizes and block work alignment affecting steel placement.
- Use of resin and M16 bolts for securing steels and preparing for beam fill.
- Overview of the teamwork and physical effort involved in the installation process.
- Plans for finishing touches including patching, packing, and concrete work after steel installation.
Chapters
- 00:00Introduction to Steel Installation
- 01:01Using Prop Holes and Threading Needles
- 02:11Positioning and Propping the Steels
- 03:00Manual Handling Challenges
- 04:59Steel Specifications and Load Capacities
- 06:43Measurement Verification and Fitting
- 08:28Installing Needles and Acrows
- 09:08Final Adjustments and Preparing for Knock-Through
- 10:46Addressing Alignment and Cavity Issues
- 11:51Finishing Steps and Project Wrap-Up
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
Speaker A
got a couple of legs as well to stick in. So, there's going to be a lot going on this week. But today, main thing, start poking some holes through and threading the needle through. We've used these so many times in the past.
Speaker A
Prop holes. Prop holes. We're using prop holes. So, we've got seven to put through the entire back of this property. Right. So, if I poke a gentle hole through, you should be able to feel the vibration.
Speaker A
I think I'm straight in. Am I in? Now, is there anything to the left or right of me?
Speaker A
Like plug sockets or cables? Okay. Nice. All good? Go on, send it. Hello. [laughter] What makes it so good using these, having these thermal lights in it rather than like the normal knock-throughs we do? We have all the rads moved. Finally
Speaker A
moved this radiator. It's keeping our side lovely and warm. We got our needles part of the way through yesterday. We've just got a rad there and a rad there that need moving.
Speaker A
Um, we've got a couple more needles put in. We're getting the steels roughly in place. I say roughly in place. Very in place. So, this steel, which is 7,240 by 305 mil, that's going to be coming. This is the back steel. It's going to be
Speaker A
coming all the way and replacing this little steel we see here sitting in a pocket over there and another pocket over there. What we're going to do, we're going to get this steel in place first, lift it up
Speaker A
and push it up with the acrows, get the other steel, which is this one. That's the front steel.
Speaker A
Get that one in place. Prop that up with the acrows and then once they're all propped and in place, we'll then put the legs in place, bolt everything down and then that will give us the exact height where the legs are actually going to be
Speaker A
sitting down there, which we need to dig down to the original footing, put mesh in, concrete, dowel in with some rebar and there's just some work to do down there and down there. But overall, it's not going too bad. But between two
Speaker A
strong men like myself and you, that's it. A really [ __ ] ox. Right, I'm going to like hump it.
Speaker A
2 1 hump [ __ ] that's heavy. [music] 2 1 3 [music] 2 1 Nice.
Speaker A
3 2 1 Nice. [music] It's quite comedic how long this steel is. Like it's just going to [laughter] come in out of this.
Speaker A
3 2 1 Okay, nice. I'll try and lift it. You put that bar there.
Speaker A
Correct? 3 [music] 2 1 Oh. What do you do? You can't. How do you move steels nicely without wrapping your body?
Speaker A
Machines? I ain't got access. I know. Fingers with. There's only two of us. You know.
Speaker A
Moral support. I wish Jack was here. Miss Jack. He'll be back. Jack will be humping away, won't he? On his [laughter] 3 2 1 3 2 1 [laughter] Let me square this up.
Speaker A
3 2 1 Nice. 2 1 Nice. [snorts] That'll do, won't it? 2 1 Nice.
Speaker A
Someone's put a load of acrows in the way. 3 2 1 Very good. 3 2 1 3 2 1 Lovely stuff.
Speaker A
You all right? Easy. That's dead easy, that one. I love doing steels. Just, um, it's just how it's getting recently.
Speaker A
Just like everything gets really over-engineered because engineers or structural engineers and F1 try to cover their own back a little bit. So, it makes sense, but this span alone is like it's quite big.
Speaker A
It's like almost 8 m, isn't it? But like the deflection this steel will have under its own weight is quite significant and because of that they have to make it bigger.
Speaker A
It is it. I don't quite know. I've not got a doctorate in the front of my name.
Speaker A
Not paid enough to think about this sort of stuff. I just stick them in.
Speaker A
We all know about sticking things in, don't we? [ __ ] hell, boy, sticking in.
Speaker A
Yeah. That what. Well, that's why we use two genies, isn't it? Like I don't. So, these are all the different makes.
Speaker A
I don't know which one this is. So, that's the S. So, it looks like the SLA 5 is the strongest one.
Speaker A
Yeah, I don't know which one we have. But either way, if we have a 400 kilo steel, SLA 10.
Speaker A
SLA 10. Okay, so that's fantastic. So, if you look at this diagram here. SLA 10. So, we can have 450 kilos there, 450 kilos there.
Speaker A
When you're out on the tip, 300 and 180 when you're right on the tip. So, yeah. Look, see how the weight you can lift goes down when the meter, like when the distance increases. It's just like a crane, isn't it?
Speaker A
Like so, we've got two of the steels now in place. Let me flip the camera around.
Speaker A
I'll show you. So, we've got this one. This is what I was speaking about earlier with Jake.
Speaker A
So, we've have one post sitting there and it gets bolted to this side and we have the exact same thing over there.
Speaker A
Um, so, yeah. Now, we're going to start putting in the needles, really. So, we're just double-checking the steel measurement. Always double-check the measurement of a steel after you've moved it in.
Speaker A
Um, so, the steel measures 6 m 100 mil. The two posts put together, each one is 255. So, two posts put together is two. Wow. Two posts put together is 510.
Speaker A
So, if we add that 510 to our steel, which is there, that gives us 6,610 and the opening from this point here to this point there is 6 m 610 mil. So, there is not much wiggle room, but that's pretty perfect. Right,
Speaker A
so this is how we're looking. First needle in. We have this prop here. And it's shooting right in. I've put some slate under the prop pal just to make sure that we are really tight up against this. And we've done
Speaker A
the same back there with the other one. So, we just need to do that another six times. It takes a while. But, man, these are the best things ever. They hold a ton.
Speaker A
So, plenty, plenty in the back of this house. There's not too much weight. Right, so we've got every single needle in that needs to be. It's actually quite surprising how level they all are.
Speaker A
Nice. Wow, they're actually really level. So, we've got six needles in in total. Acrows on this side, all the relevant acrows on the opposite side.
Speaker A
So, we're leaving this little section free so we can move the genie in and out.
Speaker A
So, we're now pretty much ready to start actually doing the knock-through. So, it's not too bad. I'll show you what inside looks like.
Speaker A
So, they're all doing their thing. All the joists supported. These acrows are going straight up, pushing directly on the needles on the other side. So, that's all sorted. Ready to rock and roll. Give it a gentle crank down then, Jakey.
Speaker A
Yeah. Cool, man. Yeah, I've got my eyes on it. It's great having the genie, isn't it?
Speaker A
That's really good. Nice. Right, you should, once it's below a certain point, you should be able to pull it back. Yeah, actually crank, crank down.
Speaker A
This is how we're looking. So, we have got our pocket sorted for where the steel is going to get pushed back to. We've aftered in place, we're now going to push this steel back into where it's roughly going to be
Speaker A
sitting. Mark the top of the steel on the block, cut all the blocks, and then this steel will then sit where these blocks currently sat.
Speaker A
In my head, it works. I didn't mean to obviously your pipe. Yeah, apologies, man. I know you've just plumbed that in.
Speaker A
Right, day three of getting these steels in. This steel is almost in position. The problem we're having, I'll say the problem.
Speaker A
Is it a problem? Who knows. Basically, these steels are like, okay? I've got a 50 mil cavity on the existing property, and the block work is 100 mil. So, ideally, I want the center of this steel to line up with the center of that block
Speaker A
work over there, which I can do, but in doing so, the steel needs to come this way a load more, and then on your landing, you're going to have a boxing-in section where the steel is yeeted in
Speaker A
to where the floorboards are. So, they're really wide, and because it's 300 mil, it's just a ball ache. So, we're just waiting to figure out what to do, really. I've taken off all the skirting board and pushed it back as far
Speaker A
as possible, and we're hoping we can probably double dot and dab these rooms back out, and then get the steel exactly
Speaker A
like this, when we put this steel in, like, rather than sit bang there, it's going to be sat like over here.
Speaker A
So, we're just trying to figure out a few things logistically. No bother, nothing we can't source. Obviously, it's all going to be holding the masonry masonry regardless. It's just where our legs are going to land. Um weird oversight. I don't think it's
Speaker A
anything to do with us. I don't think we dictate how wide steels are. Um it's more structural engineering steel people. So, yeah, we're just figuring that out, but no bother, nothing we can't solve. We got the steels in. So, we got the back steel in
Speaker A
anyway, sat on the padstone there. Sat on the padstone on that side. What we've done is elevated the front steel into position.
Speaker A
We're going to mark out exactly where we're digging our pads, work out all of the heights, start digging this pad here, that pad there down to the original footing, concrete, rebar, mesh, everything going in.
Speaker A
And then that'll be today done. Tomorrow we'll be sticking the legs in. Pour it.
Speaker A
Nice. That'll do. That'll do, donkey. That'll do. Always put a barrow in your way.
Speaker A
[clears throat and laughter] Okay, so it's my end that needs to go in first.
Speaker A
Put your end out for a minute. Yeah, they're heavy without being like ridic- Yeah, I've I've lifted heavier.
Speaker A
I can't believe how long yesterday it took to dig those stupid holes. Yeah. It's not terrible. Right, what we'll do, we'll drag drag drop it in the hole and then shoot your end up in a minute, but I'll come to
Speaker A
your end. So, let's drag it to me. 3 2 1. 3 2 1. 3 2 Nice. Right.
Speaker A
[sighs] We'll lift it straight up. [gasps] Oh, easy. Right, now let drop into the hole.
Speaker A
Nice, that easy. I reckon we just leave it there. Okay, and again. Okay. Nice.
Speaker A
And that should be a case of tapping this over. Is [laughter] this I wonder if these stone pillars are a pain in the ear. It seems to be scuppering my plans. Right, so we've just got the first steel in. What we
Speaker A
need to do is crank the original steel what is holding the skin of stonework up to where the holes are. You can see we can just about see the holes, but we've been able to get it plumb both sides.
Speaker A
Which is really nice. That plumb? Uh it's not terrible, little bit off. We've been using just a scaffold tube to crank it over a little bit, so I'll probably just crank it over a little bit more now.
Speaker A
And then we'll get everything bolted. First of all, we'll get the second steel in.
Speaker A
Drag it back. Hey. You're lovely, mate. Oh, man. Oh. The joy working with you.
Speaker A
Absolute pleasure. [music] Okay, get it. Okay. Nice. Ah, that actually little finger from you, [laughter] really actually helped.
Speaker A
Right, I'm just going to slide it this way first. Leverage. Best friend, ain't it?
Speaker A
My best friend's my uh my colleagues. Those joists are solid, aren't they? Some right good lads put them in. Nice.
Speaker A
Um one more washer. So I can get one on the back. It's always right awkward trying to get the back ones in, isn't it? You know, cuz you can't actually even get your hand in.
Speaker A
Makes it very [snorts] hard to tighten them. But I'm great at getting my hand in tight spots.
Speaker A
[laughter] There we go, right. At least we've got those two in. So, we have this leg in, we've got that leg in. We're having to pull the steel out a little bit away from the wall so we can get all the four
Speaker A
bolts in on the back, tighten them all up, and then the entire system will just get shoved back.
Speaker A
But so far, it's not looking too bad. [singing] Ah, slightly hard. So, what I'm doing is using my rip saw to get a gap all the way up. I'll probably do a couple passes, you can see how it's starting talking steel.
Speaker A
[music] So, a few more passes with this, we'll get it over, get it all plumb.
Speaker A
[singing] Um all of the 16 bolts are in. They are I've just had a look cuz I needed to know. They are 33 mil and they are 8.8 rated. Uh they can carry 26 kilonewtons worth of force. I don't know what that
Speaker A
means, but if you stick it into Google and translate it into tons, each one of these bolts has a shear strength of 26 tons. And we've got 16 in here. Yeah, so they're not going anywhere. Tightening everything down. The reason we have
Speaker A
these bolts on the side rather than the top cuz this is a something I always questioned.
Speaker A
Um because of deflection and of the steel and deflection is the bending of the steel. If we was to bolt the steel on top of this, when deflection happened, it would want to pull all of these inwards. So, that's why we bolt
Speaker A
them to the side, but it's always good to know these things. So, yeah, bolts are all in. What we're doing now, just to let you know, is um just chiseling back all of this bit of masonry so we
Speaker A
can get it bang up to this. I want it bang on plumb. Uh and at the moment we're slightly hard on the line still and that's annoying me. So, skim some of this off, get these in place, bolt it up,
Speaker A
push it up, bolt it down, resin it in. Let me show you the resin. There we go.
Speaker A
M16 300 mil. So, they're going to be going into the holes. This is our resin.
Speaker A
Man, we love this stuff. We use it all the time. So, we're going to be bolting all of this stuff, drilling some holes down here, smashing them in, resin, and then patching in. So, it's all systems go.
Speaker A
I tell you what, you could probably get a little bit more in here. Yeah, that's loads, but uh uh ah Remember we want to tighten them as well.
Speaker A
There we go. Well, they're in. Nice. Genies are all bolted in. Everything's resined. Everything's been tightened down.
Speaker A
Big tidy up, [music] and then it's time to do all of the beam fill, and then that is this job done. Ready for wall plate, and that's us [music] out here.
Speaker A
And nothing's ever easy. I tell you what, mate, you're doing a marvelous job. Really, really nice.
Speaker A
Right. There we go. How's the hair looking? [ __ ] Looking great. Ah, thank you. Thank you. Right, that is where we are pretty much leaving this job forever. That's us done. That is us boxed off, ticked off, done. So, steels
Speaker A
went in, all bolted together, bolted to the floor, all packed in, slate compo, everything sorted, packed in on the other side as well, or the other skin.
Speaker A
All what needs to happen next week when I'm on holiday is these pins need to get pulled out, pack in, and patch in the last few little bits. This job has had 36 tons worth of concrete. We have the
Speaker A
2-ft ins. Jake and I did all of the flooring. Jake, I, and Jack did all of this. We set everything out. We've built a full extension, done all the steel work.
Speaker A
Overall, it's been really, really decent. Lintels have gone on, so yes, it's been a really, really good job.
Speaker A
Thank you very much for watching along this little journey. We really appreciate it, and I'll catch you next time when I'm back off my stag do.
Speaker A
Go on, ISAAC. WOO! LET'S HAVE A LOOK. [laughter] OH, he's such a handsome boy.
Speaker A
Come on. Like a dolphin. They're just [ __ ] going by like man. Really handsome men.
Speaker A
And we go. Oh, look, the Beatles are there.
Topics:steel installationconstructionIzzy the Brickystructural steelprop holesneedlesacrowsbuilding renovationheavy liftingresidential construction
