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4 bedroom detached house build in the 1980s. The kitchen, dinning room and lounge are all quite small. We'd be tempted to knock them through if we could. Any easy way to tell if this is feasible before we pull the trigger?
Normally if it's just a stud partition you can take it away, anything else not.
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Lift the floorboards above the wall in question and see if the joists are resting on the wall, or running parallel.
If resting it's load bearing.
Even if it isn't load bearing, get some proper advice before wielding the sledge hammer as it could be keyed into a load bearing wall and you could weaken that (if it's a brick wall).
If it sounds hollow as in plasterboard and stud, then its possibly not load bearing, or get a metal detector and go above door frames and see if it detects metal, if so its a metal lintel so load bearing.
The only real way is to lift floringupstairs or smash throughthe ceilings near the wals and see whats there, you never know what the builders may or may not have done.
Even if load bearing, installing an RSJ is likely to be fairly straightforward.
It's also possible that a wall might not be holding things up that are sitting on top of it, but might play an important role in the rigidity of the outside walls/structure.
Yep, internal walls can tie together the external walls in houses where all the structure is timber, the bricks on the outside are there for decoration and weather proofing.
Don't be fooled by hollow sounding walls. Dot and dad also sounds hollow. Simplest way is pulling carpets up on first floor and noting which way boards are running, joists will l subsequently run at 90 degrees to this.
This is the problem, the vendor isn't gong to let me do any of that before we buy it. As it is, I'm not sure we'd want it.
If they want to sell they'll let you get a professional in to have a look. A stud detector might show which way the joists run.
You need Kirsty and Phil to come round and tap it for you.
have you asked the vendors? They might already know.
No, she's no idea. Widdowed and down sizing.
1980's - any chance copies of the plans are still at the council for you to pop in and take a look at?
Would the council hold plans? We've tried looking for the developer but they been taken over twice and ultimately absorbed by Taylor wimpy.
It will have had detailed planning. Might be worth taking a look at the local council website, even if the documents are not online there may be some reference to them so you can go in and view in person.
Of course it may not have been built exactly to the plans....
Worth a shot isn't it. Cheers.
Cautionary tale.
A friend of mine knocked a few walls down in his cellar. Came upstairs patting himself on the back for a job well done when huge cracks started appearing all over the house. Not just his house but several houses either side on the terrace he lives also subsided. Awkward to say the least.
how did that play out?
As it happens I just removed a small section of internal wall yesterday, without being 100% certain...
In my case I didn't have any joists or floorboards to look at - it was a single-block-thickness wall between concrete floor slabs. Inspecting carefully showed that the ceiling slabs had clearly been cast before the wall had gone up. I was pretty sure it wasn't load-bearing, and it was only about 4 ft long (across the divide between a vestibule and a corridor-like hallway) but I had a last-minute crisis of confidence and called in a structural engineer. He poked and prodded and concluded the same as me (I do have a degree in Civil Engineering so I had a small amount of relevant knowledge) so I went ahead. Upstairs is still upstairs and no cracks as yet so I think I'm safe...
The structural engineer thought it quite likely that the council would have disposed of or lost the plans anyway (it's an ex-council flat), even if we'd decided to ask them (we didn't, on the grounds that it's easier to beg forgiveness than ask permission - provided nothing collapsed, obviously). Apparently they tend to bin anything older than a decade or so (or less, in some cases) to save space...
It makes virtually no difference . In the great scheme of things even if you need to put in an RSJ it's hardly a deal breaker compared to the cost of buying the house.
Insurance and a lot of peace offerings (cakes)
It's pretty normal to have a structural survey before you buy, so if they aren't prepared have it looked at, they're unlikely to sell it at all. If you get a proper [i]structural[/i] survey (structural engineer not just a surveyor) and tell him/her what you want to know there should be no problem.the vendor isn't gong to let me do any of that before we buy it
Whereabouts is the house (there can be regional types, eg, more timber frames in Scotland).
The steel will also act as the tie regarding external walls.
It makes virtually no difference . In the great scheme of things even if you need to put in an RSJ it's hardly a deal breaker compared to the cost of buying the house.
I was thinking that too tbh.
This is the problem, the vendor isn't gong to let me do any of that before we buy it. As it is, I'm not sure we'd want it.
They won't let you lift the corner of a carpet and look at the floorboards?
If I was buying a house and they said no to that I wouldn't be interested in carrying on the viewing to be honest.
Depends if its a propper fitted carpet or just something some bodger threw down in the room....
I certainly wouldnt be chuffed if you went pulling up a propper fitted carpet as it invariably never goes back down just so.
Maybe I'm crediting everyone with the ability to do it properly and put it back as it was ?
It's not hard if you how to do it.
But then again, that applies to most things I suppose 🙂
And you turn up at my house with your carpet fitting qualifications , ill consider it. I only find out your incompetent at it after you have ripped up my carpet 😉
So my answers still no.
It's not hard if you how to do it.
So what you are saying is only sell your house to trained carpet fitters? I certainly wouldn't allow random people to start pulling up my carpets on a house viewing.
Fair enough. Your carpets, your choice.
But if I was wanting to know what the OP wants to know, and the house sale depended on it, then it would be your loss.
Trail_rat and Johndoh +1, I'd tell someone to sod off.
To the OP, the definitive answer is surely to knock it down.
So what you are saying is only sell your house to trained carpet fitters?
Yes. Obviously that's what I was saying.
I'm surprised anyone would dream of doing anything different. 🙄
Council have full structural plans for my early 90's house.
Everyone who looked at a wall including a stuct eng.* said, "almost certainly NOT structural, you should be fine taking it out". I mentioned to a neighbour who said, "ours [identical] is structural - I've seen the beams when I was doing other work!".
Right enough I spoke to the council, paid for copies of drawings and about 1/4 of the wall IS structural.
The wall is hollow plasterboard (except for some wooden "beams" at a small section), the joists above and below the rest wouldn't give it away either - but for some reason the joists in our bathroom run in a different direction to the rest of the house!
* in fairness the struct engineer's response was less categorical and recommended speaking to council for plans - but he did say "there would be no logical reason to have made that wall structural".
If there is a matching wall above....
but for some reason the joists in our bathroom run in a different direction to the rest of the house!
Maybe to spread the load of the bath (when full) over several joists rather than just one or two.
In my experience most people don't have a full structural survey done when they buy a house, just a home buyers report at the most. If the house hasn't been on the market for long, the vendor will probably just shrug her shoulders and move on to the next potential buyer who doesn't want to take the carpets up.