Removing (redundant?) buttress - is this OK

[mfarrow]

Hi

We're finally near the end game now in terms of building our extension.

One long-held annoyance in the old bathroom (new Bedroom 4) was the buttress which stuck out the wall into the room. This was where an opening was formed in 2001 between the 1958 original house and the 1995 extension. With the new extension built, and tied, to the existing house, I was hoping I'd be able to remove it completely.

Images below are of the buttress in Bedroom 4 and photos of it and the soil pipe. The soil pipe (internal wall) lintel across to the pier is nothing more than a load of timber, however the external leaf of the original house has a concrete lintel supporting it above, for the purlin of the 1995 extension.

Original house is the darker colour, 1995 is the lighter colour.

Existing Buttress

• mfarrow
• 5 Jun 2016

20160605_081606

• mfarrow
• 5 Jun 2016

20160605_081640

• mfarrow
• 5 Jun 2016

This is my proposal. I intend to span the cavity to support the new lintels with a padstone (read 140x100 lintel) however I will leave the rest as an opening, untied, but insulated and smoothed over with plasterboard.

Proposed Buttress

• mfarrow
• 5 Jun 2016

Does this proposal sound OK? Approved Document A seems to not suggest it doesn't, but I thought I'd ask here first.

 

[cjard]

The new wall will serve as an effective buttress replacement for the one you want to remove and all openings could certainly have concrete lintels for their spans.. there must surely be a building inspector involved with this project; have you sought his input? It is, after all, his name on the dotted line and with eyes on access to the problem he will be a far better source of advice than the netizens of this forum..

 

[mfarrow]

Thanks cjard. I've got in touch with Building Control, just waiting for the long-time response.

 

[cjard]

If you've already appointed an inspector I'd expect the response to be pretty quick. If you haven't started yet and haven't appointed anyone, your request might be a bit further down the food chain.. Don't forget that you have the option of engaging a private inspector rather than the council