Will shortly be moving into a 70’s bungalow, current plan is to effectively widen the kitchen door aperture by removing the door and opening wall into a large void, exposing the modest kitchen to the large living room area – thus creating the ever popular ‘open plan’ living area.

First issue may well be that the subject wall is load bearing – in which case it will need an RSJ.
More importantly, it has been suggested to me that building regs may dictate that a door is required between said kitchen and living room.

I know nothing of building regs. How does one check if this is the case? and if so, is it possible to ammend/appeal the regulation?

Can anyone give me an idea of whom I should be contacting, how much it will cost, and realistic time frames please?

I thought with the modern open plan trend being wide spread that this would not be an issue, but want to get a better understanding before I break the law of the land.

Phone up building control and ask them.

200-300quid to submit application. They are very helpful.
Might need a struct eng to do calcs for rsj etc. maybe 500-600 for that. (well that was what I paid 18 months ago)

Contact your local building control and find out if they require you to make an application or one is necessary at all.

If you do require an application get this work built into the quote (it is easy to do yourself once you have been through the process). Building control guys are great round here.

Your mention of a door sounds strange! But building regs are there for a reason but I have not sure about a door being needed, just open the space up and support what was there before, subject to the pillars supporting the end of the RSJ being enough, it sounds from the span that they may need to be reinforced or constructed meaning you will have nibs into the room upon completion.

Cost will be £2k upwards easily, the mess will also hurt. 2 days to get the wall down and supported, 1/2 days to make good the walls and decorations.

No requirement in such a dwelling to separate the kitchen area from the rest of the downstairs. Building control however will be interested in your structural alternations (beam calcs etc).

No problem with not having a door between living and cooking areas. As for the rest, get a competend builder in for a quote, they’ll tell you if you need any inspections ect.

You can look on palanning portal. Most relevant regs would prob be part B fire saftey, and part A structual saftey.

Thanks guys!

We have a builder coming round for a quote tomorrow (we are yet to move in but the property is vacant). Fortunately the father-in law will also be present, whom is a retired foreman so will know a bunch of stuff.

We wshould have enough wedge left over after moving in to carry out the works and feel that opening up the living area will be a vast improvement. I hadn’t budgeted 2k+ for the works but its the kind of figure I estimated should the wall turn out to be load bearing… which i’m now conceding it may well be.

I’ll call local planning dept. tomorrow.

where are you located?

South Downs – west of Brighton.

Building regs for removal of a load bearing wall and installation of RSJ cost us about £160.

Put the building notice in, BC inspector came round to have a look, said no need for calcs if we put an 8 x 4 rsj and 20cm bearing. Bought the beam for £100, paid a builder £100 to install and then knocked down the wall and made good ourselves. Building control visited once more to before signing it all off.

The RSJ is simple. Regs just need sign off from building control but will be very staightforward.

The issue may be the fire regs. Since it’s a bungalow things may be a bit complicated. I know there are all sorts of issues regarding separating the kitchen from the stairs in a normal house. This may be where you have issues in a bunglow if you need to separate the kitchen from sleeping areas. Not a clue. You also need heat and smoke detectors. Your builder should know the regs but you will need the plans and finished article signed off by buliding control.

Building regs for removal of a load bearing wall and installation of RSJ cost us about £160.

Likewise, closer £250 I think but in that ballpark. Same result, he had a poke about and concluded no calcs required for what the builder proposed.

Bought the beam for £100, paid a builder £100 to install

where do you people live to get work this cheap?

Got a quote for plastering a small area the other day that made me think I may as well go to night classes and learn to plaster.

Where does the builder live to be able to pay for tow men + acros e.t.c to be able to do this!

It only took them a couple of hours to install the rsj, no material costs hence the cost. Most of the work is in making good and we did that bit ourselves

just had a similar job done – we live in a house rather than a bungalow but kitchen and dining room are now a single room kitchen diner. Kitchen door was removed too – so nothing separating stairs from kitchen – there’s nothing in building regs covering this as far as i know – certainly nothing was picked up during our project?

I’m fairly sure you don’t need a protected route out (fire separation to stairwell) if its up to 2 stories – so obviously a bungalow won’t have any issues.

I would suggest you won’t die climbing out of a bungalow bedroom window in the event of a fire 😉

As it is a bungalow, why would an internal wall be load bearing?

Depends on the roof design.

I guess it would but it certainly wouldn’t be assumed to be load bearing.

bungalows can have quite a big footprint though compared to a 2 storey house of the same number of rooms which may have a bearing on the roof design.

So builder reckons wall isn’t load bearing, yet will need to install a concrete lintel.
Seems like i’ll just need to get building regs to sign off on lack of requirement for calcs..

So builder reckons

Builders reckon a lot of things, did you get an engineer?

If you need a warrant you’ll be hit up for mains wired fire alarm/detectors and basically everything else brought up to spec (pretty sure you need a 17th edition consumer unit but prepared to be corrected)

I guess it would but it certainly wouldn’t be assumed to be load bearing.

Agree.

I’m not sure I would bother with an lintel and would suggest to the builder to make the opening full height

Take a look a clause 2.3.

http://www.planningportal.gov.uk/uploads/br/BR_PDF_AD_B1_2013.pdf

New guidance should be applied if you are making the situation worse then what was previously acceptable.