Enormous Piers!

[ted1969]

morning all,

I haven't slept all night!

We are are having a rear extension done and the builders have knocked through existing wall and just put in the last load bearing RSJ where we expected piers to stick out 225mm in our house. Well in fact the party wall side sticks out approximately 700mm into the room!! Is this right??
I haven't got the SE calcs to hand but the architect shows 225mm on the drawing. It looks awful. The only thing I can see is the steel looks too small hence the builder needs to make the piers bigger?
Any help would be much appreciated as I want this fixed and don't want the builder fobbing me off. Many thanks in advance.

 

[noseall]

First check the S.E. drawings. They may not concur with the architects drawings.
However if they do concur, then get the builder to reduce the pier and change the beam at his cost. Insist upon it.





DONT DOUBLE POST!!!

 

[ted1969]

Sorry, wasn't sure where to put this. Thanks for your reply.

 

[tony1851]

Is there a conflict between the architect's drawing and the SE's spec.?
I guess the 700 pier is really just the original distance between the side wall and window opening?
To leave that length of brickwork in is ridiculous; you need to sort this out. Have a look at the calcs to see what the SE has specced.
If he's worked off the architects drawing, he should have done the calcs for the supporting pier on the basis of 225, or else suggested something
else if the loads were excessive.

 

[^woody^]

I think it's more of a conflict between common sense.

Who wants a 700mm pier sticking into a room? Calc's or not, it needs to be redesigned.

 

[ted1969]

Thanks for the replies. The calcs say 330mm each side. However builder is calculating this from the inside wall of the extension (which is not in line with existing house as party wall prevented this) and then adding the engineering bricks (a brick and a half) onto this further. So the length when measured from the existing wall out to the end of the pier is approx 700-800mm. The extension side the pier is 330+a brick and a half.

It looks awful and feel helpless. Apparently we have no choice.

 

[^woody^]

Apparently we have no choice.

You do have a choice.

Get the archtiect to design, and engineer to specify, a solution with no piers. Or at least a steel post set in to the wall. You are the client, and you get what you want, not what is easy for someone else to do.

Don't spend thousands on something that looks crap.

 

[tony1851]

@op +1 above.

 

[ted1969]

Thank you. Are steel supports a lot more expensive? Any rough idea on costs?

 

[rssteve]

Can you upload some photos of the drawings to show what was specified at the beginning.

 

[endecotp]

Have you spoken to the architect yet?

 

[kev25v6]

Our 1ton beam that supports the entire corner of the house had to have a 3 engineering brick pillar, this was more down to the building inspector than the architect. The architects don't always get the dimensions right on the drawings compared to what building control will allow.

 

[^woody^]

compared to what building control will allow

Building control will alow whatever a structural engineer tells them to allow. They cant't argue with them.

 

[motorbiking]

Why can't the beam be supported by a steel upright? I had 3 on my steelworks and they don't even come out 200mm

 

[garyo]

Your SE is your friend... I had no piers at all on a 5M steel that I fitted a couple of years ago. Presumably on the basis that the wall above it had also been removed (two storey rear extension) therefore reducing the loadings to only 2 floors and a single stud wall.