Are these holes drilled in my floor joists OK?

[chickenlicken]

Hello,

Having had a few bad experiences with holes drilled in things, I'm now paranoid about it.

Are these holes drilled in my floor joists acceptable for building regs? I was under the impression that they had to be a certain distance apart - but my sparky has done good work everywhere else and I feel like he knows what he's doing..

The holes are about 1-inch diameter and maybe 8 inches from the wall.

Untitled

• chickenlicken
• 31 Oct 2011
• 1

Do I need to ask him to reinforce the joists where he's drilled double holes, or is this fine?

Thanks very much

 

[Richard C]

http://www.eastdevon.gov.uk/bc-guidancenote7-notchingofjoists.pdf

 

[chickenlicken]

Right, thanks Richard. So they are too close together. If I ask him to reinforce the areas where he's drilled the second hole, with ply, will that do the trick?

 

[JohnD]

too late now.

they're in the midpoint of the joist, which is good, and they're holes not notches, which is good. They ought to be twice their diameter apart, which they aren't. However the holes are much smaller than the max permitted, it's possible that you would have been permitted to have a single big hole that would encompass both those little ones, which would have weakened it more.

Most likely your house won't fall down. I wouldn't worry about it.

BTW have you noticed you joists look wet along the LHS end? Did the bath overflow, or have you got damp?

 

[chickenlicken]

Thanks John. If my ceilings were up i wouldn't know they were there and I wouldn't worry about it - maybe that would be a better scenario!

Hm, there's no bathroom above there. I hope it is just how the photo has come out. But it is an external wall there. I'll double check - thanks for flagging that up.

 

[big-all]

they are perfectly fine
you are allowed a hole 25% the joist size so assuming the joist is 8" providing the combined width is around 2" you will be ok

 

[chickenlicken]

Thanks for the reassurance.

The wet look is because they were dipped in some protective coating.