Knocking down big supporting wall.

[ParadigmGiraffe]

Want to knock through kitchen into dining room. The wall between them is about 2 foot thick and was the original back wall of the house (1920s). The bathroom is above the kitchen.

Is this going to be ££s to put a steel in and do . The opening would be 3.5 m wide to the dining room.

Clueless....

Get a structural engineer to do the calcs for the steel - about £400. To remove a similar wall and put steels in cost us £1200. Not as expensive as you might think.

We removed and put 2 steels in for £800

That's nowhere near as bad as I was thinking. ooh. Did you get an architect in first or just go for structural engineer?

A 2ft thick wall in a 1920’s house would be unusual. Are you sure there isn’t a chimney breast there with alcoves that have been boarded over?

Depends what it is you want to do. For us it was obvious that knocking the kitchen and informal dining room into one was what the house needed to make a good sized kitchen. We then turned the second lounge into the dining room off the kitchen diner. No architect required. The people we bought from had used the house quite oddly, we felt. There is fabulous living room overlooking the garden, completely private with no one overlooking and they chose to use the dark room at the back of the kitchen instead. We had the ceiling in there vaulted which has made a huge difference.

You might get lucky but our 1920 built farmhouse doesn’t have proper foundations and then there’s the added complication of a very very old drainage system at one end of it that needs to be replaced (also have a bathroom above). We have had a structural engineer report but because the builders can’t be 100% sure of what they will find and have to deal with because of lack of proper foundations in a building of this age, we’ve had estimates from all of them that they pretty much all agreed would need contingency and could cost anywhere up to GBP10k worst case. That’s the original, very thick, external wall that’s currently between kitchen and newer utility that we want to open up. It’s about 4.5m. I’ve therefore been dithering for years literally about doing it. Decided I might have to do two smaller sections of openings instead, like two very wide doorways to open up the space. Anyway, structural engineer is the first step.

May I take this opportunity to point out that when you undertake work of please make sure you get the relevant building control inspections, and a completion certificate at the end of it.

It will be necessary whenever you sell the property in the future.

We got all the building regs and certificates at our last house for a loft conversion so au fait with that bit. Just slightly fazed by the incredible thickness of walls at new house! Houses of a similar age and style in the area have built extensions and done work so I'm hoping they were all built with proper foundations and drainage....

We’ve had a 3.7m opening knocked through last year , with quite a complicated steel (something to do with heights of an adjoining steel) and it cost 3k (SE) and that’s not including the structural engineer who was £650 .

My lounge is 5m wide with s steel in the ceiling. You need a structural engineer to calculate the size of the steel and how it is to be secured each end. It must sit in the walls to be effective.

We also have one corner of the house supported by beams as it has a wrap around oak and glass porch attached. It’s then open at that corner which leads into the hall. There are substantial beams to do this. As long as beams can be anchored effectively you can open up quite large spans.

Unless you want two openings, I wouldn’t have though you needed them.

@BubblesBuddy tha5 sound fab. How much did it cost to do it all though? And did you have an architect?

The architect designed the porch but DH is a Structural Engineer. It was part of a big remodel of the house where we had architectural input regarding layout. There was a lot of work so it’s difficult to isolate the beam costs.

I would suggest the costs pp suggest above are reasonable for a beam but always allow a contingency for unforeseen costs. Your wall is thick so just knocking it down and propping up the floor above might cost more. You also need to level the floors where the wall was. Boxing in the beam is also a consideration unless you can hide it in the ceiling. Ask your engineer what is possible. You could need piers on the side walls to hold up the beam if the side walls are not substantial enough. It all adds up!