Removing a floor in an old house

[Jameswhat]

Hello all,

I've just bought a little house in France (1 up, 1 down) but the downstairs floor has sunk because of rotten joists. This shouldn't have proved a problem to resolve because the floor is made up with the usual joists and floorboards.....but then has about 5 inches of reinforced concrete on top of the whole floor.....yes, you heard right, all on top of wooden joists!

After a fair bit of deliberation, I would like to remove the whole floor and create a much taller room (there is approximately 4 feet of cellar space under the floor). I could demolish the floor completely and then use the concrete rubble as a hard core base for a whole new floor below.

I am worried how this might affect the structure of the house though. Would it be likely that the floor is load bearing and holding the walls for the upstairs room up? It is an old stone cottage, built onto a hill in a medieval town and so has a lot of age and I am worrying about my next step.

Any ideas gratefully received.

Thanks!

 

[r896neo]

best get in touch with a local english speaking surveyor/ structural engineer, what you have may be common practise locally for some reason?

If your not sure if its structural It does not seem like the kind of job to rely on an internet forum.