Removal of ground floor

[roger3007]

Currently there is a floor of about a foot thick between my ground floor and the cellar of my (c200year) old house. In the context of some ground floor remodelling I want to remove this floor and replace it with a wooden one, which would give me more ceiling height in the cellar, in which I plan to put the kitchen. I realise that this will not be a simple job, and I'm not going to attempt do it myself, but I wanted to get an idea of quite how difficult it might be before I start getting quotes. The house is only small, with a footprint of just 30sqm, and there are no internal walls to speak of (certainly no supporting walls). The cellar walls are all about a foot thicker than those of the ground floor, i.e. the cellar is slightly smaller than the ground floor. As far as I can see the only thing that would need to be supported would be the staircase. There are a couple of pipes that cross the ceiling of the cellar (gas, water, electric) but otherwise nothing major.

Any tips? I repeat, I'm not going to attempt to do this myself...I just want an idea of quite how major a job it would be. Thanks a lot.

 

[Bylough]

Have you thought of a 'beamed' style ceiling in the 'kitchen'- give you more height of sorts. The beams resting on the protruding 1foot wall tops?
A quality pine flooring onto the beams, maybe?

 

[roger3007]

Thanks for the reply. In fact this is exactly what I plan - wooden beams spanning the room with the wooden floor of the dining room forming the kitchen ceiling (I have something similar between the ground and first floors). I'm interested to know whether I am likely to face any major problems associated with the removal of the existing floor. This might be a stupid question, but could the floor form part of the structure of the building, and could removing it require lots of wall reinforcement etc? Thanks

 

[Static]

If the cellar is completely underground then its possible the ground floor acts as a prop to the walls as you say there are no internal walls to the cellar.

 

[roger3007]

Thanks. Actually, the cellar is not completely underground: the house is on a hill; front and side walls are completely underground, but the back wall is not underground at all, and the other side wall is a party wall to my neighbour's cellar. As I said the house is small; in fact the cellar is only about 25sqm. Based on this, is it likely that the ground floor acts as a prop to the walls? Thanks again

 

[Static]

Its more than likely it does, with a full height retaining wall and it being a 200yr old property. Historic properties tend to gain support from what may otherwise be considered non structural items in a new build property over the course of time.