This house is about 1000 Sq ft, The girder was made out of 2X4 and many of them as you can see and between them they used OSB as If they were buiding a header. The 4x4 post are not supported properly, No bolts everything was nailed or screwed. Just want to be sure with all of you and share some good pics, Your thoughts please THANKS !!
Wow, one would think the deeper masonry pocket would have been a hint.
I guess the store was fresh outta I Beam or …
Silly question, was there deflection on the floor above?
Guess they wanted to save on materials, add a block, used form boards for beam, and extra 4x4 laying around. 
A lot of effort to do it wrong.
It appeared to be solid home was built in 1980
You are so right Larry to go though all that work to build up that pocket
This was common in the early 1900’s. Every home I inspected had 6 2x4’s spliced together to make the main beam. Every house with this design sagged in the middle. I think they did it for head room because every basement was too short to stand in.
This gets my vote or I don’t like that big beam in the basement we may want to finish it some day.
I see solid 8x8’s or larger in that vintage home. Like this one with the octopus:
http://sweetsuite10.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/img_0200.jpg
great picture Larry…I haven’t seen one of those in a while…
You would not find a beam like that in some of our old homes and I have never seen the Octopus either in my time of inspection. Our basements are so short that you could not install one anyways.