Knock through wall separating Living/Dining-room

Hi guys,

After searching through previous posts, I cant find anything which directly helps with my query so I was hoping you'll be able to answer it.

I own a 3-bedroom, semi-detached house (built around 1950s) and want to knock through the wall which is currently separating the Living Room and Dining Room. It is a load bearing wall which has the wall separating two bedrooms resting on it. I've filled in a building notice form and submitted a cheque.

Now, I don' t know how to go about it. When I first contacted building reg's, they said that I needed to submit the form along with calculations from a structural engineer, as well as 2 or 3 quotes of how much it will all cost. However, I'm surprised all this is necessary as I remember several neighbours who have had the same wall removed around 15 years ago and I dont think they even went through building reg's etc. So, I again put forward my query to another member of the building reg's team who just insisted that I fill the form in with the correct fee.

Do you think I need to call in a structural engineer to work out any calculations or can I just call in someone to knock through the wall and then get the building inspector to check it as needed?

Also, who can you call to knock through a wall (I dont want to do it myself) as a lot of builders I'm looking at mostly build extensions etc, so wont this job be too small for them?

Finally, what is the overall procedure that I should practically be following in order to go about completing a task such as this i.e. would you call a structural engineer, how long does it take to complete etc?

I'm grateful for your help and suggestions

i would advise that you get in touch with a s.e. he can advise you as to whether you need to leave nibs, padstone sizes and of course, steel size and all the relevant calculations that b.c. will wish to look at.

a jobbing builder will be able to take care of the rest.

Hi,

Thanks very much. I'll look to do that asap.

One final thing, we've just had the whole of the upstairs re-skimmed, and as I said earlier, two of those bedrooms are directly above the living room and dining room obviously. I was wondering, is there a chance that this whole process of knocking the wall through likely to cause cracks to appear in the wall which will be supported by the rsj (separating the two bedrooms upstairs), either when the builder is knocking out the bricks and/or in the future if that wall may move due to any sort of vibrations etc.

Cheers

cracking is likely but not a certainty.