Removing bathroom wall??

[Zebsport]

Hi Guys,

We want to remove our bathroom wall and replace it about 2 ft further over into our bedroom. Its going to be alot of work for such a small gain but our bathroom is so small it should make a big difference.

The house is 1950's. The wall is constructed out of a light weight, dark grey block. The wall has been built straight on the floorboards, about 6" from the nearest joist, which runs the same way as the wall. At the top, the wall just butts up against the ceiling. There is nothing above the wall in the attic the nearest joist is about 10" way and again runs the same direction as the wall. Once the bathroom wall comes out of the bathroom it immediately has our bedroom doorway in it.

This all seems to tell me its not in anyway structural. But my concerns are with regards to the back wall of the house. Is it possible that the wall acts as some sort of support to the back wall, in a lateral sense. ie if you looked down from above the bathroom wall and back wall would be T shaped.

My dad (old school!) is lets get the Kango out but i'd like a few opinions first? The new wall will be of the stud type or I can build it back as block like the original.

Any advice much appreciated.

Zeb

 

[^woody^]

Is it possible that the wall acts as some sort of support to the back wall, in a lateral sense.

No.

You can remove it, if it is not supporting anything in the loft

Put it back in timber stud, rather than adding the new masonry load to old floors

 

[Nige F]

Indeed - and don`t bother with a kango , it`ll pull apart easily once you`ve made the initial breakthrough with lump hammer and chisel

 

[Richard C]

If you build it in stud, Building Regulations require any wall between a room containing a W/C & another habitable room (your bedroom) to be sound insulated. To meet minimum requirements, standard 12.5mm Wallboard is not suitable, you need to use either Wallboard 10 or SoundBlock 12.5mm or, even better, 15mm. The stud cavity must also be filled with sound insulation material, a minimum of 25mm mineral wool is specified but I use 100mm cavity wall insulation bats inside a 4 x 2 studding.

 

[Zebsport]

Thanks guys,

I thought that would be the case. Is it worth drilling a series of holes were the bedroom wall adjoins the back wall to make it part company more easily or just get in there with a chisel.

 

[Richard C]

If you knock the plaster off, you will may find every other block is keyed into the main wall or there may even be steel ties fitted so you may need to drill some holes or remove the ties to minimise remedial work necessary where it was connected to the main wall.

 

[Zebsport]

The mineral wool you mention for sound proofing is that the same as the insulation stuff you put down in the attic? Sorry if thats a dumb question!

 

[Richard C]

No that’s loft insulation; I have used these;
http://www.just-insulation.com/rockwoolcavity.html

But this is the proper stuff:
http://www.walls-and-ceilings.co.uk/products.asp?cat=250

Also found this:
http://www.diydata.com/general_building/sound_partition/partition_proof.php
Slightly more fiddly to construct but achieves a better result.

 

[Richard C]

Double post again