Bungalow layout - flexible?

danielley

I have seen a bungalow that is in a great location however the layout doesn't work for us at the minute.

I am hoping that it would be possible to change the layout fairly easily, using the assumption that none of the internal wall are supporting anything above them, but can anyone advise if I'm mistaken.

Thanks in advance

Doozergirl

Why would you be mistaken?

You can remove walls even if they are supporting, they just need newly engineered support instead. The more adventurous you get, the more it might cost, that is all.

sugarcube84

Well I live in a bungalow, a 2 bed everything off a central hall and one of the hall walls is load bearing. You would need to have a look in the loft, or have a structural engineer have a look or have a look at the local planning to see if anyone has extended and in conjunction changed the layout.


In the majority of cases there will be a load bearing wall internally but as said above you will be able to remove by added in new support.

eddddy

As Doozergirl says, some walls are likely to be load bearing (supporting the roof) and might be bracing the external walls.

You have to decide whether you are doing the space reconfiguration as an 'investment' (i.e. increasing the value of the house), or simply a 'sunken cost' so that you enjoy your home more.

Unless the room layout is very bad currently, you might not recover the costs of lots of engineering, when you re-sell.

danielley

martinthebandit

We wanted to do similar with ours so employed a structural engineer to advise us before we bought it, was £250 well spent.

Davesnave

We reconfigured ours, as the previous owners had messed-it up. We found only one load-bearing wall within. In fact, it was clear that the building had been erected, the ceilings were then added, then the walls were built. They were block walls too.

We took advice before starting, and as mentioned above, you should do the same, but for us there were no structural steels involved, apart from where we altered a roof from flat to pitched.

redlady_1

Completely reconfigured ours to the point only the three bedrooms remain. Took out a chimney breast, rebuilt chimney/ingleknook. Knocked down loads of walls and built a rather large extension with a glass gable end. Cost us an architect, structural engineer, usual permissions and a shed load of building costs.

However, our neighbour is going to reconfigure after seeing ours but will do so without the extension for about half the cost.

Its really not difficult and so worth it.

Waterlily24

We completely reconfigured ours too but we had to take the roof off completely to make an upstairs.