how to build?

[tompapa]

I've been wondering about all that stuff Errol. I figured my next step in the process would be finding a soils engineer. Just out of curiousity, would a boring for the well, which is in the immediate vicinity of the building site suffice for the soils report? The well driller made a report of what he found along the way to the depth of 120'. Or do the engineers require multiple samples or even that they are there to observe?

I'm thinking I'll be taking Richard's advice on the steel and I've drawn up my initial thoughts on how that might look. The fellow who does structural steel for me recommended an engineer who's savy with steel so I'm sure he'll have the final say as to how to go about all this. There is one question I'm also very curious about though. How would you build a deck on I-beams with a pan and a poured concrete slab that would not require more than a minimal step down from the interior of the building? I assume the building would have to have some sort of very shallow floor joist system and it'd be nice to frame the interior floors on top of the I-beams, keeping the construction process simple. Are there alternative joist options other than say 2x6's for this sort of application? Do they make I-joists that small?

Also, is the drawing I've posted the sort of layout you might see for the steel? I'm figuring on some sort of pier and grade beam type situation for the foundation. Just trying to get a semi-sortof handle on the cost here. If I have an idea what the end result is going to look like figuring materials is relatively easy and I already know what I'm going to charge myself for doing the work, heh, heh!