Installing 3 Steels

[TBQFH]

Hi Guys,

I am about to remove a weight bearing wall which has a chimney breast on either side of it.

I have had a SE in and hes given me the calcs, hes requested four block columns either side of the bearing wall wit concrete footings, which sounds fine.

Beam 1) Will run below one chimney breast
Beam 2) Directly below the weight bearing wall
Beam 3) Will run below the second chimney breast


These are to sit on the columns on padstones.

What I would like to know is:

Can I sit the beam directly under the joists or would I need to have a wooden plate on top of the beam, but that means the bricks in between the joists would be sitting on the plate too?

Or can I just bed the beam up with cement and level it up under the joists with no plate?

Many thanks,

Dan

 

[tony1851]

You can sit the steel beams directly under the joists.

Aside from this, the scheme which your SE seems to have come up with sounds like usual Heath Robinson nonsense which dull and unimaginative SEs come up with. Is there no other way than having to put up with 4 concrete block pillars in your room? Surely there is at least one loadbearing wall which the beams could sit into?

 

[theoldun]

As Tony has said, sounds bit Micky Mouse.
First thing springs to mind, is to rattle stack, flues and breasts down from top to bottom, and have one steel only.
Of the top of me nut, will cost out cheaper.
Be interesting to know span, solid or concrete ground floor and size of pad foundations.
Regards oldun.

 

[TBQFH]

Hi Guys and thanks for your replies

I know it sounds a bit that way, without seeing the place.

The problem is the only other load bearing walls would be the party walls as its a mid terrace.

The other problem is that the chimney breasts when they get upstairs in to the bedrooms shoot off to the center of the house which in turn joins a shared stack with next door.

The other problem is that its a double pitch roof so this also sits on the center load bearing wall lol

I don't want to go down party wall agreements etc, so unfortunately I think this is the only way we can tackle it.

I would have loved to pull the breasts out upstairs, but other than the party walls again there is nothing load bearing to support these.

 

[TBQFH]

The place has been gutted so its no biggy the pillars

The span is 3.385

and the floors were floating wood when they were there over dirt, I will be putting these back in later.

I've already dug the footings for the pillars, just waiting for BC to come and check them before fill

 

[tony1851]

One can see your reasoning, but do you really want to live with 4 ungainly lumps of concrete in your room? How will it look to potential buyers if ever you sell the house - they might think there have been structural problems.
Is it really so bad getting a PWA agreement?

 

[TBQFH]

It wont be as bad as that, the columns will only stick out 300 by 1000 and I'm going to box them in so all you will see is a 1000 column up over and down.