Structural Engineer

[Judith Birkett]

Hello

I have a wall between my dinning room and kitchen that I want to remove. I am not sure if it is load bearing. I have used a stud finder on the ceiling and it looks like the joists run parallel to the wall I want to remove, but the stud finder is a bit varied with results.I have also pulled up carpet and the floor boards run parallel as well. There is no wall directly above it either so I am fairly sure it is not load bearing but do not just want to remove in case. I have been told that the safest option would be to get a site visit from a structural engineer. Does anyone know how much that would cost for a site visit?

Many Thanks

 

[pilsbury]

If the floorboards run parallel, then joists don’t. Could you not see joists when you lifted the boards? Joists likely sit on the wall. The wall likely offers support to the joists. What is the span either side of the wall you want to remove?

Sounds to me like steel time. A SE would be required as I believe building regs would be too. A ball park for SE would be £300.

All in my limited experience.

 

[^woody^]

An SE will be a hell of a lot more than a builder or DIYer with half a clue.

If the wall is coming down anyway, make a hole at the top or in the ceiling and have a look.

 

[oldbutnotdead]

What they said- if the floorboards are parallel to the wall then the joists will be set in the wall and likely being supported by it. If you're just doing a knockthrough in a conventional house then your local friendly BCO will be able to tell you how big a lintel to put in (as long as you're not into silly 6m spans)- you'll have to notify them anyway so why not get them to do a bit of work for their cash.

 

[tony1851]

If the floorboards run parallel to the wall, it's likely that the wall will be supporting the floor joists, hence it will be load-bearing.
If the span is not too much (2 - 2.5 m?) a 152 x 89 should be OK. Your bco may - or may not - ask for figures for this.

 

[oldbutnotdead]

Addendum to tony1851's post- not sure if building control up here are typical but they have always been happy to accept prefab lintels (Catnic or similar) on the manufacturers' specs- RSJs they've always wanted calcs for. So if your job is a 'standard' knockthrough a prefab lintel may be £100 more expensive than an RSJ but you may not need £300 worth of SE input