Knocking down a wall: To RSJ or not to RSJ?
 

Hi all,

This is far from a car question but I'm hoping there might be a builder, an architect or an engineer among us to give me a steer.

I'm in the market to get a new kitchen fitted - I want to make the existing space bigger by knocking through a wall to an adjacent dining room.

The thing is, the wall is brick. As is every other internal wall in the downstairs of my house bar my toilet.

I had a well known local kitchen firm (that do the whole job from bricklaying to tiling and plastering) pop over and they pretty much said it's guaranteed that it'll need an RSJ put in without actually doing anything to check. Now I'm sure if I go ahead to quote stage they'll actually try and verify this but in the meantime is there anything I can do myself?

My initial suspicions are that this isn't a load bearing wall.
I believe that the supporting beams of my home go horizontal across my home. The wall in question also goes in this direction as per the below diagram. I believe this because a) it's the shorter distance and that seems logical b) when I checked out the floorboards in my bathroom (that I'm starting to strip out), the screw pattern appears to follow that flow (planning to lift these up at the weekend to verify).

Are there any other things I could do to check it out? Does anyone here have any experience with this sort of thing?

Thanks guys

James

http://i295.photobucket.com/albums/m...psg5cqctsn.jpg

Is there a similar wall in the room above it?

Hope you dont mind me putting my two pennerth in. that wall is there for a purpose and it looks like a supporting wall having an identical wall further on.

Rev

It's supporting the external wall.

You can tell the direction of the floor joists by the nail positions in the flooring.
If you have floor boards and not chipboard the joists run the opposite way to the boards.


PS. The shortest direction for the floor joists in your plan is across the dining room.
ie. bearing on those internal walls.

There is not - a much larger room sits above it that takes up the whole kitchen plus about half of the dining room.

You could well be right - I'm not 100% sure whether it's actually taking weight though.

If the beams go in the direction I think they do (horizontal), at most only one beam would actually be resting on it. Of course if they go vertical then it would definitely be taking weight and an RSJ designed by a structural engineer is needed.

I hadn't thought about the external wall at all!

The terms you are using are confusing. ALL joists go horizontal.

Vertical means from floor to ceiling.

There will not be a case of ONE joist resting on a wall. It will be all or nothing.

Mr PB666 Sir.

Precis of my career.
In charge of construction of---------

1/ More than 250 houses.

2/ Shopping centers.

3/ County mansion for the Duke of Somerset.

4/ Blocks of flats just about everywhere.

5/ 3 years in Dartmoor prison on the internal engineering construction of several cell blocks.

6/ Roads and supporting structures as per the Tamar bridge.

7/ Four large retail outlets in the middle of Plymouth.



And Lots and Lots more.-----------------:eek::eek::eek::eek:

When I say vertical/horizontal I meant in relation to the diagram from a birds eye perspective. As in, going from the longest sides of the diagram to the other long side is horizontal.

Quite a resume there fella.
So from a quick squint you're thinking it's gonna need an RSJ?

I know its out of context Colvert but it did make me laugh :D

You are most welcome.---:bowdown:

I know there are folk on the forum who enjoy harassment etc.

If it's possible at all I really like to add a bit of humour if I can to some of the posts I make, in order to help folk out of the pit of depression they sometimes get in.

Dartmoor prison. Terrible place to work and dangerous too.

We were working to give hot and cold running water in all the cells. Central heating and a toilet pan.

TV and radio points too.
Previously all there was in all of the cells was a bucket for you know what.

Digging trenches outside for services we had to have steel roofing erected above us to avoid the knives and sharp objects that were thrown at us.
Even socks filled with excrement---:eek::eek:----and all we were was trying to greatly improve their living conditions.


PS Sorry Mr OP. I went just a little off thread there.--Back on topic now. Lol.

From the information up to now--------YES.

But I add, the joist directions need to be checked for sure.

Okie pokie - thank you for your input.
I'll pull up the floors and have a look at the weekend.

Would you say it's normal of a late 80's house to have brick walls throughout on the ground floor?

So, do we take it that you know something about architecture and construcion? :D:D;)

Not bad for a chap who also understands batteries and alternators. :bowdown:

My guess would be that the joists run across the internal walls which are therefore supporting the floors above. So, agreed, a check on the direction of the joists is needed. Even then, I would always get an architect's opinion.

A good quality house will have.

Sometimes however a load bearing lightweight block is used.

This is for insulation and sound deadening.


All of the houses in the pic below, up to a total of 40 were in a contract I ran at Newton Abbott, Devon in the 80 s.

At that time they were selling for £90,000 to £150,000 which was a fair amount though they were all 5 bedroom places.

Know something ????---:D

Unfortunately yes.

I've done some re-furb of some very old houses with odd shaped walls and roofs.

Twice I've had the visiting Architect remove my working sketches from the office wall only to arrive a day or two later with OFFICIAL architects drawings of what I'd already constructed. Lol.

I could write a book about the goings on I've been involved in during my working life.

When I look back I can't even believe that I managed to fit in all the things I've been involved with.

When I wanted to knock my loo and bathroom into one I spoke to a friend who was a structural engineer.

He came round looked at the wall - breeze block construction - and ripped some skirting off. The wall was running parallel to the roof rafters but in between them and was build on a piece of 4 x 2 timber laid on top of the floor boards.

He had no hesitation in saying it could go.

It's a 1930's house.

I am not a builder but the wall you want to remove, does it help support the internal wall on the right that has doors?
The joists upstairs, do they run parallel to the wall you want to remove or at right angles to it? if at right angles then they may rest on the wall you want to remove. Is there an upstairs wall sitting on top of the wall you want to remove?
I can only ask questions, don't know enough to make a recommendation

macafee2

Don't forget any structural changes RSJ's etc should be approved under Building Control. Also if there use to be a wall in the identical position on the first floor you could suffer from a lack of rigidity so tying in via an RSJ or pin will help reduce the chance of wall bow, though the plan looks like the house is quite small structurally.

I'm going to confirm the joist positioning this weekend but it seems like they run parallel to the wall I want to remove. If that's the case, I'd presume that the wall with the doors is load bearing.

There's no wall upstairs sitting on it either.

I'd 100% do it the right way should the wall turn out to be key to the integrity of the building. The guy who came to look at the job just simply tapped the wall, realised it was brick and kinda defaulted to saying RSJ and usual about the engineer and getting the council to verify it's all good. I was kinda expecting more of a tap on the wall to determine hehe.

In terms of size, if I knock that wall out, the length of the kitchen diner should be around 5m long so at a stab I'd say the full length of the house is maybe 8.5m/9m in total. It's detached if that makes any difference.

Hurrah!

I had a structural engineer come round at the weekend and he confirmed that the wall is not load bearing and that an RSJ is not necessary.

That's a few quid saved :)

Now to see about getting a builder to do the job and fit me a new kitchen.

if not load bearing why not do it yourself?
whilst not load bearing what does it do for the wall on the right with the doors on?

macafee2

I was tempted to do it myself but I just CBA. I want a crew in to knock it down and do my kitchen with all the tiling and plastering in one go. Lazy? yes. Expensive? Probably. Worth it. Yes (hopefully).

Turns out that wall with all the doors on is the load bearing wall of the house. I also managed to find an architects drawing for a house around the corner that had an extension done on my local council website - it would appear that the wall that separates the dining room and kitchen is helping to prop up that internal load bearing wall.

If in doubt...
 

If in doubt how about cut an inspection hole in kitchen ceiling and have a look whats resting on top of the wall in the between floor cavity. Minor repair to the ceiling could save £'s in RSJ costs.

Even cheaper to pull floorboards upstairs to have a look...

It is indeed - that's what happened.
We could tell just by the way the boards were screwed down and the distance between them.

The wall you speak of is also helping to prop up the External load bearing wall. ( Depending on which way your roof is constructed. )


Which way does the ridge run with respect to your floor plan ??

Forgive my attempt at explaining this...

My house is a rectangle with a triangular prism (Toblerone) style roof. The ends of the prism are at the short sides of the rectangle.

When you say ridge, what do you mean? My knowledge on this whole subject is a little light to say the least hehe.

Ah got yeah, in that case it's as I said? Like a Toblerone at the peak of the prism hehe

Now if you go to the left and right bottom corners of your Toblerone the weight of the roof goes vertically down to the load bearing INNER skin of your exterior cavity walls.----

The roof trusses sit on a timber wall plate at the top of the inner skin of your external walls. Do not play with these walls as they are LOAD bearing.----:eek::eek::eek:

But as long as the roof truss is sound and the bottom chord on the truss is present then all the load is straight down through the load bearing wall(s) isn't it? So as far as the wall to be removed goes it shouldn't make a difference: If the wall to be removed was giving strength to the outer wall at all it'd have to go all the way to the top of that outer wall after all.