I will tell you what I know. If you remove a load bearing wall, it is critical that you have put in support before its removal. You can use an I beam, bottle jacks, and some 4 x 4s. My understanding is that you need a beam with an inch of width per foot spanned. This means you would need a 2 x 12. And I would use two. You might want to look into prefab beams.
So, if you have 8' ceilings, the space under the beam is going to be 7'.
The answer to your question is yes. You want to be sure of the structural integrity of what is going in. I am not a mechanical engineer.
JayR
