Questioning the structure of open plan living / dining room

[dilapidated]

My house is a 2 up 2 down Victorian terrace with rear 2 story extension for kitchen / breakfast room and bathroom above.

You walk in to the lounge from front door (no porch) and the next wall/break in room is the rear door to the kitchen extension.

All the other houses in my street are the same layout but have a wall dividing the lounger / dining room.

Ours has been removed approx 40 years ago.
Nothing has been bought up on survey, but it strikes me as odd that a long room (approx 4.5m wide by 10m long) has no beam where the wall was removed.

Looking on neighbouring floor plans the wall may have not been structural as the walls above do not sit directly on top.

The timber floor joists go across the room rather than the length of the room.

It's been done so long ago and there is no sign of movement so I assume it's ok.

Would you be worried?

Do you know which way your floor boards run upstairs?
If they run, as I suspect, from the front of the house to the back, then, no problem.

We have a 1970s house with one big 26ft long room downstairs and a kitchen - it was built that way and it has had no end of problems with bowing of the side walls which had to be dealt with. Would make sure the outer walls (and inner) are truly vertical before you consider it.

It's possible that there is a steel which has been put in in such a way that you don't see it and don't have it visible as a beam across the middle of the room.

It's possible that there is a steel which has been put in in such a way that you don't see it and don't have it visible as a beam across the middle of the room.

You mention you've had a survey so can't the surveyor reassure you? Was it a structural survey?

Just standard survey. Nothing was mentioned or picked up on.

We are renovating and floors are up so can see joists running across room with floorboard running own the length of the house.

No steels though.

No sign of bowing or movement in any of the side walls.

House was built 1900, rear extension 1980.
Which looks o be about the same time the wall has been taken out.

The upstairs layout remains the same.

There is a half converted loft which isn't being used as a habitable room but will one day be properly converted when funds allow.

So it's the internal downstairs wall that's been removed not the original back wall? If so the joists run across the floor so that's ok. Is there a wall directly above where this one used to be and if so what sort of construction is it, and does it carry on into the loft? Chances are it won't be a structural wall, and in any case if there's no sign of damage as a result then that sort of answers the question! At that age non-structural walls are often thin lightweight blocks made out of a flyash type material and they may well have just doubled up the joists underneath to support it.

Thanks, that's reassuring

It's just an internal dividing wall.
The walls above would not have been immediately on top of it and are made from timber panelling rather than brick.

You have nothing to worry about then. The removed wall was not a supporting wall.

Wouldn't Victorian non-load bearing walls have been lath and plaster? Pulverised fly ash blocks wouldn't have been used much before the 1950s?

Yeh to be fair 1900 might be a bit early for those blocks, I think they started being used in the turn of the century (I had a 1910 built house that had them). Only mentioned it because people sometimes think they are a 'structural' wall because they're not studwork.

Anyway, sounds like you're fine OP!

Even 1910 is pretty early for PFA materials - they really took off in the 1940s and 50s as coal fired power stations were developed.

I'm not sure they were PFA (could be clinker or similar), all I know is they were really crap to try and fix anything into! I guess the wall could have been a later modification too.