Knocking out a supporting wall - is this going to be £££?

[reastie]

DH and I are complete novices on this type of thing and don't know where to start.

The back of our Victorian house is an OK sized dining room and a smallish kitchen (with a back door, door to a loo and entrance door, so not alot of space). I would love to knock out the wall between the 2 rooms (which is a fireplace wall with fireplaces in the bedrooms directly above) and assume there must be a way to knock out the fire places downstairs and support it somehow so the fireplaces can continue (allbeit unused) upstairs. This would give a really nice kitchen/diner space. I'm also thinking about moving the back door from the now kitchen to where the window is in the dining room. We are due to have the windows replaced at some point soon anyway.

What I'm wondering is is it just going to be a very expensive long drawn out thing to do or is this something that's quite usual. I have no idea as to cost other than a friend had a supporting wall taken out (not a fire place one though) at the cost of £10k (we are in SE England btw).

It could be amazing but the thought of the expense of all the plumbing/electrics/wall knocking down/plastering/flooring (current kitchen has stone floor and dining room is floorboards) just makes me think it will be too expensive and that's not even including costs of the new kitchen itself. We looked at getting a kitchen done a while ago as we were then considering moving it from it's current spot into the dining room but that was going to cost in the region of £25k to move all the bits to the dining room and make a kitchen in there. When we do get a kitchen done we don't want a cheapy cheap one, we want one that will last (but don't want very posh one either)

I am inheriting in the region of £40 - 50k but this needs first to be spent on new roof then windows and doors - I'm not sure if what we have left will come close to covering it

We're planning exactly this but without removing a chimney breast. We're getting plans drawn up at the moment (likely to cost about £400 for architect and structural engineer's advice) which we'll then put to builders for quotes. I'm tentatively budgeting about £20k including s spanking new kitchen but this could be way out. I don't expect to have quotes for another 3-4 weeks but will let you know the outcome then. We're in SE England too.

Knocking out a supporting wall is not ££££. Replacing the structural support some other way is.

misspolly would really appreciate info on your quotes, and, if you live near me also the details of who did the work I'm in Kent. SO you have to get plans drawn up then ? I just assumed some one came and knocked it out and re supported it then the kitchen people did all the rest [clueless]

We knocked out a supporting wall between kitchen and dining room, 8x4 x 3m steel beam cost £100, building control was around £160, we paid £120 for someone to install it and I knocked down the wall myself so it doesn't necessarily have to cost mega bucks.

Tyler I am really impressed by that. You sound pretty capable. I am clueless and fearful so need professionals to guide me along the way.

Reastie I thought I'd need plans to get clear quotes from builders. We're having to box off our stairs too though because of the layout of our downstairs and fire regulations so needed some ideas from an architect but I thought you'd have to get a structural engineer to do calculations on the steels needed to support the load for building regs but it's very possible that I'm throwing money at it needlessly out of ignorance.

We've just done the same - knocked a load bearing wall down, to make a large kitchen diner (it looks great).

Overall, the RSJ / wall work was £3,500 + VAT. Building regs / engineer working out what size RSJ was £500 + VAT. Kitchen we spent about £8k + £3k oven / appliances. Then £500 floor, £100 tiles. Electrical work was £2k (moving fuse box, new ceiling lights, underlights, switches, new sockets etc etc).

Knocking through was the best thing we have done, it looks amazing. Knocking through took 2 weeks. Fitting kitchen 1 week.

tyler afraid another clueless person here who would need to get someone in to do it.

All interesting reading. sheep I imagine ours would be more as we would have to move a boiler which is on the wall which will go, but, at the same time, we have a washing machine/dishwasher/hob an oven in our existing kitchen we could reuse (although I need a double oven so may have to buy another of the same ovens we have).

People in my area seem to charge IMO more than I expect to do the work though - maybe it's the area we live in or they think we are mugs but we usually pay tradesmen an average day wage of at least £250 when we've had work done over the last year or so, so that would really add up with moving a boiler/electrics/plastering etc etc and if we go with a company who do all of it for us presumably they charge extra for doing the service

didn't think about calculations for which size beam - assumed builder would do this but realise I'd be a bit in their hands on that one so paying an expert may be best, also had no idea re: building regs checking it all out

So, potentially I could do it with £20000

I thought it might be helpful to see how cheaply it could be done and work up from there, even if you need to get trades in.

The installation of the beam took a morning, one builder + labourer. So that part of it shouldn't really come to too much. I think the moving of the boiler and the electrics will be the more expensive bit.

We overspecced our beam so we didn't need calcs (lots of authorities will let you install certain sized beams over certain sized openings without the need for calcs).

We've got trades in to do other bits of the work and I was amazed by the range of quotes we got. Our quotes for the electrical bit of our work ranged from £300 - £1200.

I'd get some quotes in and go from there. I have a feeling that it would be cheaper to get someone in to knock out the wall and move electrics plumbing etc. in preparation then sort out kitchen separately than try and get someone to do the whole job.