Coal shed with concrete slab roof- wall removed?

[TheArtfulBodger25]

Hi all,
I have a brick outbuilding (single skin) immediately to the side/behind our house. Approx 3m x 2.8m. Mine and our neighbour's outbuildings are connected. It has a thick concrete slab roof. I think concrete lintels laid side by side then topped with concrete poured on top and dry coated with bitumen tarp. Typical of 1950s.

The concrete slab has a lean to that connects to above my back door (and does the same on the neighbour's side too). The outbuilding itself has two doors and originally a smaller section of it was used to store coal (you can see the staining on the brickwork in that section). There was a small wall in this corner which kept the coal in one section and left a larger area of the building. The previous owner has removed this wall. You can see where it was on the brickwork and also on the concrete floor.
There is electric and water in the outbuilding. The previous owner has also put in a window and lights and plastered the ceiling. I would like to insulate it, put plasterboard, plaster, paint and put some flooring down in order to make it a more usable space or perhaps have it as an office. Lots of neighbours seem to have done similar with theirs. However, I am wondering: when the small wall that confined the coal area was removed, should there have been additional supports put in place on account of the weight of the concrete roof? Or with these constructions is the weight of the roof evenly distributed across the four walls of the building? Will upload some better pics later.

The felt on the roof probably needs some attention in places but that is for another thread.

Any thoughts?

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

I have a brick outbuilding (single skin) immediately to the side/behind our house. Approx 3m x 2.8m. Mine and our neighbour's outbuildings are connected. It has a thick concrete slab roof. I think concrete lintels laid side by side then topped with concrete poured on top and dry coated with bitumen tarp. Typical of 1950s.

We had one similar, but ours is built on the opposite house corner to next door, and therefore completely detached. I think you will find that rather than a single brick skin, it is double brick thick. I think the authorities, maybe, had bomb shelters in mind, when they designed them.

Ours, originally had three sections a coal store, a wash-house, and a toilet. Each with separate door access, three access doors, along one long wall, none of it very useful. It was all refurbed revised in the 80's, to become - the coal store, just a useless garden store, with a single brick wall dividing it from an enlarged utility room, wall dividing utility from the toilet was removed, making a useful sized utility room.

We had a pantry, next to the kitchen, within the main house, and that was turned into a new downstairs toilet. So we lost a very useful pantry.

Soon after that refurb, I decided the ex-coal store, now garden store, would be more useful as a pantry, but it was long, and quite narrow. What I decided to do, and which works well, was to cut a door-way, through the centre of the wall dividing it from the new utility room, and brick up its original door. I then added a series of wide, deep shelves to each side. So, basically, you go in through the utility room door, through the utility, through the new opening (no actual door), and on both your left, and your right, there are lots of deep, wide, very useful shelves.

So now, instead of two full width walls supporting the concrete roof, one was completely removed, and the second one had a section removed in the middle, to form a new door. Instead of three separate doors, in a row, there is just one door. It already had a window for the original utility, and one for the toilet, these were retained, and now both allow light into the utility.

I've often wondered whether that concrete slab, included any steel reinforcement. From memory, it's around 5" thick.