Building control or planning permission for removing load bearing wall?

System

safe wrote: »

That's rubbish, I’d never advocate doing a job badly or dangerously and without seeing the place no advice can be given with any authority on what to do and I simply stated what I would be likely to do if it were my house. There could be many reasons why this isn’t the best option such as if the structural wall is acting as a buttress or the house has a history of subsidence. There is still no reason why the calcs can’t be provided by the op by working out what load is going onto the beam.

Also an engineer would not Taylor a specific beam out of a multitude of different options with each one needing time and consideration spending on it and thus enabling a fee of £400. The engineer will put the weights of the materials and live loads acting onto the beam into a spreadsheet and it will specify a 178 x 102 x 19kg UB with 2 small padstones (I assume the wall is only 4” thick) the opening is only 7’ wide. The house would not fall down if the appropriate sized beam was put in and an engineers liability certificate would not make the installed beam any stronger. As long as the job is done properly and the right lintel installed you wouldn’t need any insurance whatsoever.

the qualified engineer can use whatever tool they wish to specify the lintol, it's the fact that it's done by a qualified professional that makes the difference, i could work out the size of lintol too, i still would want an engineer to sign it off both for piece of mind insurance purposes... the engineers liability cert would mean that the specification of the beam was the responsibility of the engineer and therefore eng would be liable should anything go wrong, if the op does this themselves there is no comeback, you try claiming your insurance if something has gone wrong with a beam...

iamcornholio

An Engineer should charge no more than £150 for this type of work

Things to remember as this is a money saving site .....

Some councils will "pre-approve" steel or contrete lintels up to a certain size - normally 3m

If you use a standard lintel (eg from Catnic, IG, Keystone etc) then you do not need to have any calculations as long as the lintel is used in typical loadng situation, and is installed in accordance with the manufacturers instructions

For a 2.1m opening like this, as long as there are no point or uneven loads, then a 178x102x19kg UB will be more than enough. A contrete lintel 140mm deep may be enough, but will be a right pain to try and lift in.

For a steel beam or lintel, dont forget the 12.5mm plasterboard and 5mm skim for fire protection - properly fixed so that it does not just fall off if a fire occured

Tucker

Unless I am mistaken the current requirement is double thick plaster board around a steel beam.

That's what my Building Control required, so mine has 2 X 12.5mm plasterboard on it.

iamcornholio

The requirement is "1/2 hour" or "1 hour" fire protection depending on the location of the beam

12.5mm board and skim will give 1/2 hour protection

cubso_2

Thanks for all the feedback folks. I don't think I'll be taking this work on myself but will shop around for a cheaper price for the calculations and submit that to building control. I think for the application/certificate/etc... the local council only charge £69 so that's not too bad.

Thanks again

GClyde

Hi, you will most certainly need building control approval for this. If I were you, i'd make sure that you obtain all the necessary approvals and keep yourself right...........just going ahead with works like this without permission is a fools game!

cubso_2

Hi all, I thought I'd update you on some progress this morning:

I sent off an email to some local structural engineers to see if they'd be interested in a small job like the one I'm doing. Got a few responses back and sent more information such as diagrams, photographs and measurements of the wall to be removed. I've only been given one quote so far (remember my initial quote for this was £400 + VAT) - this morning I got one for £75 + VAT. If I hadn't been able to provide the information it would've been £175 + VAT due to the requirement for a site visit.

Called building control and the they have 2 levels of approval - plans approval and building notice approval. I'm going with the latter as I won't be submitting full plans for approval and the building notice approval therefore comes to the grand total of £60.

Its been a very productive morning - looks like I'll be getting this work done a little sooner than I thought. Thanks again for all your comments and advice.

GClyde

Hi Cubso, good to see that you're going in the right direction. :T