Removing internal non load bearing wall fall under the regs?

[LiamPope]

Hi there

I'm in the process of putting together my building notice for various work I want to start on my new house. Going through various parts of the regs I can't quite decide if removing a couple of short non load bearing internal walls and putting up a new stud wall should go in the notice!

I'm thinking no because my understanding is that that work would not fall under the definition of 'building work' given in the regs. for example it's not work to a thermal element cos it's an internal wall, not a material alteration because at no time during or after the wall modifications will the building loose compliance (or have worse non-compliance) with those relevant requirements given (A, B, M...) etc etc.

Is that right or am I missing something? If this work is controlled by regs and should therefore go on my building notice, please could somebody explain where it fits in?

Many thanks!

Liam

 

[Richard C]

It will also depend on what you’re forming with the new stud wall as other BR’s may come into play; for example if you’re forming a new W/C the stud wall may have to meet minimum sound attenuation values; requirements for ventilation etc.

Also be sure the walls are indeed non load bearing!

 

[Shytalkz]

If you're putting a notice in, why not include them anyhow, it won't cost you anything to do so.

 

[^woody^]

It will cost more if the cost of the extra work moves it up the fee scale.

Personally, I give the LA as little information as necessary about your house. You never know what they do with it

 

[^woody^]

Oh and to the OP .... on the form just write "internal alterations to form a new ....." and that covers all the work. Don't bother writing every minute detail of the work

 

[chessspy]

Hi, liam,
If you make a friend of your local building inspector/ D.S. you will be a lot better off.
I would go and ask them what they want to see.
you will usually find the local planning dept a good resourse and helpful.

 

[LiamPope]

Hellooo

Shytalks - a good point well made - I'll probably just do that!

Chessspy - I'm trying to be buddies with my local building control but to be honest it's proving difficult They tend to take weeks to reply to an email and have a 'creative' interpretation of Part P in which I have to arrange and pay for testing of the notifiable electrical work i'm doing, etc etc. Finding the time to go down and see them might help but with work email is the most convenient method of communication (for me).

Ah well, anyway - regarding am I sure the walls are not load bearing etc, I'm pretty sure they're not but here's my evil plans anyway. Would be nice to have other eyes cast over them I guess...

Untitled

• LiamPope
• 19 Jul 2008
• 1

This is how things are at the moment. White represents the original house - a 1930's semidetached bungalow (attached neighbour to left in picture). Internal walls are all brick. Ceiling joists go left-right in the picture so it's probably fair to assume the central internal wall is helping support those.

At some stage (i'm pretty sure at the same time) extensions to the rear and side have been made (shown in yellow). As you can see this involved removing most of the original rear and some of the side main walls leaving essentially columns remaining! Hefty timber beams are installed supporting these openings. The rear extension is a concrete slab floor rather than suspended timber like the rest. Ceiling joists are up-down in the picture and hung with steel joist hangers off the timber beams supporting the openings of the original house rear wall. Both these extensions were originally flat roofs but have since been converted to pitched (in fact the flat roofs are still there, dirty weathered felt, tar, lead and all - the pitched roofs have been plonked right on top butted up to the original roof). The little photo is from multimap and shows the roof pitching.

Some time after an integral garage has been added as well as a odd little rear lobby, both flat roofs (green in the picture).

The walls marked for removal are in red and new walls to be built are in blue. I want to loose the little hallway to the kitchen so that the bathroom is a bit bigger than the useless cupboard it currently is. The little section of wall that needs removing shouldn't cause the roof to cave in I reckon, being so close to the central internal wall. The thickness of the bathroom-kitchen wall is misleading. For some daft reason the side extension front-facing wall didn't line up with this internal wall meaning there was a step in the 'new' extended kitchen wall. At some stage they've decided to batten out the bathroom wall and put up a false facade so that they could run units down a nice straight kitchen wall. I'm considering knocking out this bathroom wall too and rebuilding the whole thing in studwork on the kitchen side. A little more work but could give me an extra 5 inches in the bathroom, which in a bathroom that size is a big difference!

The kitchen-extension wall must have been built to give them some extra space in the piddly little kitchen. It butts up to the extension ceiling and is literally a foot away from the joist hangers on the original house end wall. Therefore I cant see any problems knocking this wall out. A new stud wall is going up splitting the extension to give me an uber-kitchen.

The final result should look like this (couldn't be bothered to remove the 'furniture' but you can see the proposed wall modifications OK)...

Untitled

• LiamPope
• 19 Jul 2008
• 1

Any comments on my structural assessment of the internal walls, and on my plans in general much appreciated. Cheers!

Liam

 

[LiamPope]

P.S. I must apologise for my abuse of technical terms in this and future posts, in particular 'joists', 'rafters', 'beams', 'studs' and 'purlins' will all be used incorrectly or replaced with 'bits of wood'.

Cheers

 

[Shytalkz]

It will cost more if the cost of the extra work moves it up the fee scale.

True, but you massage the figures accordingly, remembering, of course, to take out the cost of decorations etc that has nothing to do with BRegs.

Personally, I give the LA as little information as necessary about your house. You never know what they do with it

Can't argue with that! Just a generic "internal alterations" on the form will do, LP, don't go itemising everything.

 

[Richard C]

I can’t see any stairs, do you have 2 floors or has it been converted? & I can’t see any front door? I’m also having similar problems with LABC interpretation of Part P regarding an en-suite I currently building which will hopefully be sorted next Wednesday at extra cost to me; it’s got to be the most ill thought out of all the regs. & just a joke! But they know full well you’re unlikely to argue too much for fear of making your life difficult!
A few quick observations:
• Check that all the 1st floor joists over that short wall are full width & not been bridged with off cuts to straddle that wall; I had a similar & rather annoying problem with 2 out of 10 joists some years ago!
• The stud wall between the bathroom/kitchen must be sound insulated - Sound block plasterboard & min. 25mm mineral wool insulation.
• Don’t know where your foul drain run is but bear this in mind with the layout; do you have a soil stack or is it directly connected? Don’t forget you will have to comply with current BR's. on the refurbishment!
• To comply with current BR’s, the revamped bathroom will need an extractor fan to an external wall; kitchen will also need forced extraction & if you do any sort of serious cooking, go for the largest extraction rate you can find. Although they meet BR’s on extraction, most cooker hoods are primarily designed just to look good & are woefully inadequate.
• It looks like your going for open plan; it’s all rather trendy at the moment but the downsides are it can be cold & draughty in the winter & you have to heat the whole area to a comfortable temperature rather than in zones; cooking smells & heat from the kitchen will also be noticeable throughout the whole living area. My daughter had a new & very trendy apartment of open plan design for 2 years & it used to get so uncomfortable in there, you had to start opening all the windows; she’s now moved into a house with a conventional layout & said she would never have an open plan kitchen/living area again!

 

[LiamPope]

Richard C - exactly right - the LABCs know most people will settle for the quiet life rather than a court hearing for the sake of 1-2 hundred quid for the testing. It's bullying pure and simple

Thanks for the comments...

No stairs cos it's a bungalow! Original front door was to the side of the property but this door is now to the integral garage. The front of the garage has the new front door plus the up-and-over.

Still need to complete more detailed investigation but so far I think my ceiling joists are all continuous and laying on top of internal walls.

I must admit so far i've been reading up on mostly electrics, plumbing, heating and structure so I'm not yet clued up on noise, drainage etc! Kitchen and bathroom will of course have extraction. Existing toilet is a bottom outlet rather than rear and the drain goes outside underground (well now in the garage floor technically rather than outside). I'm planning on using that existing toilet drain - is that OK? Do you need to add a vertical stack?

I suppose it's semi-open plan. Not much we can do about the lounge/dining space as building a wall between would make the lounge a dingy cave with no natural light. The kitchen is closed off but with a double door as, whilst we want it separate, we also want to make it open-up-able if entertaining etc etc.

Cheers,

Liam

 

[Richard C]

No stairs cos it's a bungalow!

Well that’s pretty obvious then! Don’t know why I got the impression it was 2 floors, I think I got confused by the thumbnail photo; eyesight not as good as it used to be!

Original front door was to the side of the property but this door is now to the integral garage. The front of the garage has the new front door plus the up-and-over.

Can see it now; presumably those are also exit doors at the back of the garage & from the lobby. So is front access through the garage? That’s unusual; you don’t have to comply with current fire & escape regs. these only apply to new builds or change of use (renting/multiple occupancy etc.) as long as provision is no worse than before but I think there may always been a requirement to have 2 external exit routes. May be worth a close look in the regs. & perhaps some discrete enquiries as an exit through the garage may not count! If you don’t already know you can download copies of all the BR’s free from the UK gov. Planning Portal.

I must admit so far i've been reading up on mostly electrics, plumbing, heating and structure so I'm not yet clued up on noise, drainage etc!

I got caught out with the en-suite after I had boarded up one side & had to double up on the PB one side & use Soundblock on the other with mineral wool inside the partition but it’s no big deal really. This applies to a dividing stud between a habitable room & a room with a w/c. There seems to be some confliction in the guidance; a kitchen is not a classed as a habitable room but a large kitchen or kitchen diner is!

Existing toilet is a bottom outlet rather than rear and the drain goes outside underground (well now in the garage floor technically rather than outside). I'm planning on using that existing toilet drain - is that OK? Do you need to add a vertical stack?

Should be OK to use the existing foul drain; BR’s state a w/c doesn’t have to be vented as long as the distance from the outlet to the foul drain invert (the horizontal bit) doesn’t exceed 1.5m but there are dimensional restrictions on other connections & these must not allow cross flow; read up on Part H. If you’re connecting a bath & shower to the same invert, you may get problems with drawing the traps in which case you will either need either anti-siphon traps or fit an internal vent (Durgo valve); I have one of these boxed in behind the w/c but it must be higher than the highest point of overflow on the system for obvious reasons! I can’t see a wash hand basin; you should check that’s not a requirement under current regs; I’m unsure!