I'm getting ready to finish off our basement. I have a question on supporting the beam. I guess it's not so much a beam but is three 2 x 12 nailed together. As of right now it has 2 floor Jacks. I am going to be building a wall along where the jacks are located. The problem I have is that one floor jack will be in the way. I'm going to put some cabinets and a sink that will be built in to the wall that will be about 8 feet long. The floor jacks are concreted in to the basement floor. I only need to remove 1 of them. Should I just put one on each side of the 8 foot cabinet area? Or, do I even need them if the rest of the beam will be supported by a 2 x 4 wall? It seems like if there is a 2 x 4 every 16 inches floor jacks would not be needed. I'm not quite sure so I figured I'd ask someone that knows!
Thanks in advance for the help!
Brian

You should ask a structural engineer. They are relatively inexpensive and will give you a correct answer for probably $100 or $200. They will need to know the information you have given above plus the basic design of the rest of the house (i.e. length of beam, length & width of whole house, number of floors, type of roof).

The engineer may say that 1 post is good enough... if you do need more support under the beam, then I suspect the main problem you will have is that there are no footings under where you want to put the 2x4 wall. Therefore a new 2x4 wall cannot be used to carry the load from the 2x12 beam because there is nothing to support it. A slab floor is not good enough.

The engineer will likely suggest you open up the floor, and put in a new footing to support a new post in an area that will hidden inside the new wall. This is grunt labour and you'll have a pile of dirt in the basement while you're doing it, but I bet 2 people could be done the messy bit in a weekend.

Edit: There's usually more than one way to solve a problem. Depending on how easy it is to do, the engineer may suggest scabbing on another beam, or perhaps replacing the three of them with a microlam beam. Then you may be able to carry the whole load with the single post.