If you were a vendor - would you let a structural engineer in before completion?

[Loueytb3]

About to exchange on an house We are currently renting and want to do some work on the house before we move in. Part of this involves taking down a wall between the kitchen and dining area to make a bigger room (see pic). The difficulty is that we are having trouble finding out whether the wall is a supporting wall or not. The builder has been there and looked up through the spotlights and can see concrete on the 1st floor which he says is unusual. We have been trying (in vain) to track down the architectural plans for the house (which was built in 2002/2003). The closest I've got is to speak to someone at building control who can see the documents but won't let us have copies. Based on what he says the wall isn't likely to be structural. However our builder is being cautious and wants to get a structural engineer in to see for sure. This will involve cutting out a section of the ceiling on either side of the wall we take down. If you were a vendor, would you let your buyers in to do this before completion? The mess will be cleared up and the ceiling put back. The vendor isn't living there are the moment but may have house guests there from time to time. We have changed the completion date to suit him and we want to start work as soon as we complete so we are concerned about delaying things further if we can't establish whether it's a supporting wall before completion.

Not to take the ceiling down no, I wouldn't, sorry. I was with you till you said that

I’d let you do it after exchange but before completion. There’s often only a week between them so you won’t gain all that much time if that’s the case for you.

Same as Dragons - post exchange and pre completion, yes. Before exchange, not a cat in hell's chance

No, I wouldn't. You haven't exchanged yet. You could leave my house a mess, possibly even causing structural damage, and pull out of the sale. It's not worth the risk to me.

Is your purchase dependent on the answer or will you buy anyway?

Not that that changes my answer. I wouldn't let you do that before exchange

Looks lovely btw OP - but I can see why you'd want that wall down...

Sorry - should have made it clear - I wouldn't dream of suggesting it until we've exchanged, which hopefully will be the end of the week - we are signing contracts tomorrow. The vendor has already signed his and there is no chain.

The purchase would not be affected by it. The wall is going to come down regardless, it's whether we need to put in RSJ's or something else if it's a supporting wall. That has impact on the timing and cost.

Why won building control let you have the drawings? Might be worth working on this angle, even if you have to go there in person to get them?

Bitoutofpractice - the wall is odd - it's almost as if the architect thought - I need to add a feature...

Socks - something about not being in the public domain. I've had several people tell me this. The only document we are entitled to is the one that signs off the work at the end.

Have tried going through the house builders who no longer have the plans and local planning who don't have the structural details we need. Original architect is (I think) retired or dead.

Any other suggestions gratefully received!

Also - there is 7 weeks between exchange and completion, assuming it happens this week. So quite a long time to wait

7 weeks,yikes. I’d definitely ask.

We had to wait ages for our structural engineer to be available but once he’d been in his report was ready in days. So even if they say no, you may find that so long as you can book him in for just after completion, you don’t actually lose much time at all.

Maybe after exchange but it’s arill a pain in the butt for the vendor to be there, wait around for your contractor turn up, who will clear up the mess made and then they have to look at a ducked bit of ceeling for the next x weeks.

No, not even after exchange. You may still pull out after exchange and yes I'd get to keep your deposit, but there's no guarantee that the deposit would be enough to cover the damage. Unlikely I know, but what happens e.g.if the ceiling collapses?

Get the vendors / their solicitor to write to architect / council on the vendors behalf (not yours) to authorise release of the documents that can then be sent to you.

Deposit is more than 150k so I would hope that any damage would be covered by that!

namechangedtoday15 - from what building control said - they wouldn't release the documents to anyone. Which I agree seems a bit odd. But I have v little experience of building control regs.

You have a right to see the architectural plans for the house and these should be on the planning portal for the LA. Or their own system and they may make you pay.

However, DH is a Structural Engineer and he’s never cut a ceiling out. An experienced one can tell what the wall is made of, how thick it is, how the joists are laid and what is above putting a load on that wall, if anything.

So if I was the vendor I wouldn’t let anyone chop out the ceiling before completion. Even if it is load bearing, it’s no big deal. You just need a RSJ. You just cannot check everything before you buy but an experienced Structural Engineer would be pretty sure as to load bearing or not just by visiting. However, that’s just not worth the money because you will be able to do what you want to do without a knowing definitively about the wall right now.

No way! Not even after exchange!

In what way will it stop you doing the work afterwards? You find out if it's a load-bearing wall and as the PP said, order an RSJ. It's not going to set you back months, I just can't see it being a big delay.

I think the plans the OP was asking about were the original housebuilder's plans. Look around for a similar development of theirs and see if there is any info online.

I’m also a structural engineer and have definitely had to chop into a ceiling, although usually only on much older properties where it isn’t as obvious. Floors up as well. But only after completion, I have to say.

In a modern house, it’s usually at lot more obvious as to the load paths. The concrete your builder can see is possibly a beam/block floor - not as common at first floor level as at ground floor, but is certainly done sometimes.

If it is loadbearing, there is a limit on how much of it you can take out - a beam can carry load, but it needs something to rest on at each end. Looking at the plans it would need to span from the external wall to the stairwell, which is quite a span and you would have a downstand, where the beam was lower than the ceiling. The engineer may also want you to leave part of the wall at the external end to provide enough bearing for a beam.

Ultimately, you need someone to visit the property who knows what they are looking for. Beam and block floors are relatively heavy compared to timber floors as well, which will increase the size of the beam if the wall is loadbearing.

BubblesBuddy - that's encouraging. Perhaps when I speak to the structural engineer he can come out and see what he thinks without causing any damage. The plans are on the planning portal but they don't include any structural information which is what we need. Builder no longer builds any residential properties and were completely unhelpful on the phone and ignored the email I sent. I have googled in case the same house was built elsewhere but have drawn a blank.

Building control did tell me that the joists run the other way to the wall and did not think it was load bearing but the builder said he needs confirmation.

It won't stop us doing the work, but if it turns out that it is structural then it will delay the whole project as we will need structural calculations, ordering RSJs, building control will need to be involved etc. It would help if some of that were done before we complete so that we can start the building work on day 1 instead of day 14. (I'm plucking figures out of the air here as I don't actually know how long these things take). I do realise that 2 weeks isn't long in the grand scheme of things but we have a rental contract that runs out 3 months after completion and it's going to be tight.

Just found this on local building control website:

"Please note that Building Control records are not public record and documents can only be provided to the current owner(s) of a property or a solicitor working on behalf of the current owners. This is because submitted documents to support building regulations applications are considered confidential under the terms of Section 9 of the Openness of Local Government Bodies Regulations 2014 and are therefore non disclosable.”

So I might be able to get the current owner to get hold of the relevant documents...

To be perfectly honest, doing a few calcs for small job like this is simple calcs for a S Eng and should be pretty quick. Don't forget Strcutural Engineers work on very big complex houses and projects so one wall in a domestic house is really easy and not very time consuming.

As an example, we have a beam in our lounge and it spans 5m. It is below the ceiling by 230 mm due to not being able to hide it above. It does not bother me at all. The internal pier on the external wall is 30 mm into the room, so just tiny. The wall mostly takes the load. There is no pier on the internal wall at all.

We have also removed the corner of the house and repkaced it with beams to open out the entrance area. This was done with T beams which were then clad in oak.

Try and avoid a "belt and braces" approach that some engineers have. A goo dengieer will design to the safe limit, and take aesthetics into consideration.

I will take a photo and post.

I haven’t read everything but our structural engineer didn’t need to do anything invasive to determine this kind of information and make his calculations.

Are you just planning on removing the angled wall between kitchen and dining room?
If possible, I would also change the L shaped wall with 2 doors into hall. Have a straight wall going across instead. Steals a little space from the hall and makes kitchen diner a better shape

I will try and post photos so you get a general idea of what it could look like. The two ends of the beam in the lounge I am showing you span 5m.
The oak clad beams are shorter but with the right design, there are possibilities where piers are not intrusive (or are indeed visually absent).

Thanks Bubbles - those beams are gorgeous! I think we may be able to hide the beams anyway as there is a suspended ceiling but it's useful to get ideas about how to make them look good if they have to project into the room.

Breakfast - we did think about that but it will bring the dining room door very close to the living room door. If it turns out we have to put RSJ's in anyway, we might revisit it.

Exchanged yesterday (hooray!) so next week I am going to get onto building control again and see if they will release the plans to the current owner.