Kitchen / Diner design advice

Ballymoney

Pure coincidence. I have about 1000 pics screenshotted from insta

The plan is for light grey units and white quartz top. I’d played with the idea of having the peninsula in navy cabinets when the plan was 2 banks of units, to add some contrast, but now I think it’ll all be light grey. The splash of colour will have to come from elsewhere, maybe the standalone shallow unit on the top wall.

Ballymoney

Me again, this time with a question relating to a structural engineer.

My current kitchen is an extension carried out by previous owners. They knocked through an external load bearing wall but only made an opening of 1.8m out of a total width of 3.7m. 

For my renovation, I’ll be knocking what’s left of this wall down making it flush with the outer walls. I’ve therefore got quotes from a structural engineer to draw up plans for my builder outlining RSJ requirements.

The 3 quotes range from £390 to £450 for a site visit and CAD drawings. I’m totally new to this so would you say this is reasonable? Or should I continue getting quotes? I’m based in Yorkshire.

Doozergirl

I don't know your house so well, but do you know what is entailed and how much the building work costs to knock most external structural openings back to flush?

Most people don't do it for a reason.   

Have you got the full floorplan? 

Ballymoney

The blue scribbles are where the remaining sections of external wall is that I’m wanting to remove.

I’m hoping the structural engineer will provide details on how feasible a flush finish is. If it adds a silly amount of money to the project then I’ll settle for small nib.

Would you say quotes of £390 - £450 are reasonable for a structural engineer visit and drawings on this particular knock through?

Doozergirl

I think it's more than reasonable given the level of work they'd need to do to look at creating it flush, but I'm not sure they're quoting on that.  

That is the original corner of the house, it's integral to the lateral stability of the house.  If you consider the house has a box and cut a hole out like the one they have done, it wont affect the stability of the box much.  If you cut out right to the corner, it will lose stability and you'll get a 'waggle' in it.  Houses have to within the force of high winds as well as the weight of the house above.

Building Control dictates pretty much a metre left on the original outside measurement of the wall if you just have one steel.  To take it out to near-flush, you're looking at digging up the floors inside and some outside the house to creating new foundation pads for a steel goalpost arrangement.  Most probably.  

The issue is that it costs thousands and is unlikely to add value to the house... 

Ballymoney

Thanks Doozergirl. 

Okay, forgetting the pipe dream of a flush finish, what I don’t understand is I’ve seen literally 100’s of pictures on Instagram of rear extensions. They have all affected the corner of their respective properties and the vast majority have had RSJ’s installed leaving either a small pier or, admittedly quite rarely, flush. 

The norm seems to be the construction of 150mm piers to support the RSJ? I’m not sure I’ve seen any close to 1m? Am I missing something?

Doozergirl

Ballymoney said:

Thanks Doozergirl. 

Okay, forgetting the pipe dream of a flush finish, what I don’t understand is I’ve seen literally 100’s of pictures on Instagram of rear extensions. They have all affected the corner of their respective properties and the vast majority have had RSJ’s installed leaving either a small pier or, admittedly quite rarely, flush. 

The norm seems to be the construction of 150mm piers to support the RSJ? I’m not sure I’ve seen any close to 1m? Am I missing something?

150mm won't be on the original corner of the house, it will be where there is more wall continuing over to a next room or indeed an attached house next door, unless of course they've gone for goal posts.    It's more like 60-70cm internally on a corner.   Lots of people hide them in and around the kitchen units.  

You'll have to find me examples if you want explanations, but instagrammers are also well known for not photographing the things they don't want people to see!  

Doozergirl

These are old works of ours.   

This one I had a hissy fit over as I didn't know what I was talking about.  The house was falling down so structural work wasn't that much of a big deal.  All of the joists above were replaced, hence the flush ceiling.   

This was our last house and I just disguised it in the peninsular. 

This was a terraced house, so not on the corner, and it still needed decent support. You can see the piers on the both the internal and external walls.  

You can see us getting better at it as well 😂
In many houses it's all part of the charm. 

Ballymoney

Useful pics, thank you.

I’m just going to have to see what the SE has to say. If I’m looking at 600mm+ piers on either side of the RSJ then the project is dead in the water. It’ll be a case of chucking an extra £10k at it to get the flush finish or not bother at all.

With my desired kitchen design I can make 200mm support pier on the right l internal wall work but nothing more. 300mm would work on the outer corner wall. Hopefully the SE finds that sufficient.

weeg

I piping in here as a structural engineer.
1) those quotes are extremely reasonable for an inspection and basic steel-on-piers design.
2) Flush is very expensive. There's a world of complicated details
3). Depending on your substructure/ foundations, there's a good chance a steel goalpost hard against the remaining walls would work. You'd be looking at 100-150mm square hollow sections, plus plasterboarding out etc. So 200-300mm piers.

Obviously, It's all dependent on your actual house though, so large pinch of salt.