Help! Metal plate in the way of joist notches

[statstastic]

I'm notching my joists to reroute some central heating in my house. The notches are 20mm deep (12.5%) and are centred 23% of the way along the span of the 160mm x 60mm joists to comply with building regs.

The last notch I need to do is a double joist, but I've just noticed it has a 3mm steel plate sandwiched in the middle. Help! What should I do?

 

[Newboy]

Don't cut it - it sounds like a flitch beam and is almost certainly structurally important. Sounds like a re-route for your pipe run may be needed.

 

[statstastic]

Thanks for the reply. I've looked up a flitch beam and that looks like the thing.

What a disaster.

The beam runs the full width of the house so the only solution I can think of is to go over or under it. I can see that an electrical cable has been passed through it so perhaps a hole can be drilled to pass the pipes through?

 

[TheVictorian]

Flitch beams have bolt holes so it should theoretically be possible to drill a couple of holes for pipework without harming it's integrity but I'd check carefully before doing anything.

 

[statstastic]

Thanks. Over or under would be a complete nightmare to reroute, but it sounds like a structural engineer's advice would be needed to do anything else. I might post this in the building section and see what people say.

Thanks again.

 

[longdogs]

Thanks. Over or under would be a complete nightmare to reroute, but it sounds like a structural engineer's advice would be needed to do anything else. I might post this in the building section and see what people say.

Thanks again.

Drilling through it is not going to cause a problem but will probably be quite difficult to do.

 

[Agile]

Your flitch beam was presumably fitted there because it takes a higher load.

Do you know what that load is? Cross walls? Chimney breasts?

If it was mine and there was no significant load on it, then I would notch it but the reality is that it must have been used because it carries a higher load than the other joists.

But why in your case?

Tony