Knocking down a partition wall

lady123_2

Hi everyone, i want to knock through to my kitchen to make an open plan kitchen dinner, i have a tradional 3 bed terraced house in east london, the front reception is already knocked through into back reception, but our kitchen is tiny, so i want to knock the wall down between our back reception and kitchen to make a bigger kitchen/dinner, with a breakfast bar seperating the kitchen area from back reception if you follow me.
question is, who do i contact to find out if the wall is supporting? a builder friend said he thinks its not supporting wall due to the way the floorboards run and an rsj along the back of the house, but need some proffessional advice just incase our upstairs bathroom ends up in our kitchen:eek: do i call the council or do i need an engineers report, if so how much do they charge to look at a wall and advise us of what we need to do.
any advice greatfully received

woodbutcher_2

My first port of call would be building control of your local council.Ask them if they will come have a look.I don't know how accomodating your local council are but they should at least advise you on which way to proceed.If you do need an R.S.J. they will probably pass the buck and tell you to get a structural engineer to calculate the load,that's what they do here.

lady123_2

thx Woodbutcher, much appriciated