Advice on Wimpey no-fines.

[tony1851]

Has anyone any experience of structural work on Wimpey 'no-fines' houses? The work would involve removing about 3m of rear wall to open up into a proposed ground floor extension. Not confident that the material will sustain the load from a steel beam without crumbling. I wondered about supporting the beam off 2 steel columns each side of the opening, with these supported in turn on a steel ground beam?
Has anyone any other suggestions or experience of similar jobs?

 

[^woody^]

No fines is very difficult, or impossible to adapt for large openings.

You need to be aware of where the reinforcement is located at first floor level (ie the particular no-fine design type), and also that normal propping can't be used. Also the loadings on any support beam are different due to the panel design

And yes, the system does not take point loads well

Any alteration must be designed and supervised by a structural engineer experienced in no-fines construction