Hmmm...missing a beam or RSJ?

[TimHardusty]

We have just started to rework the kitchen in our 17th century Portland stone G2 listed cottage. There's a relatively recent (in the context of the house's age!) extension at the back made from smooth blocks of some description - possibly Portland stone, with a doorway to it from the main (original) sitting room.

The main ground floor walls of the house are about 1m thick, and the upstairs walls maybe half that. There are a couple of steps up from the sitting room to the kitchen, with some cladding covering everything: much of the cladding came off yesterday to reveal the (lack of?) construction when the door way was made This was probably done at least 100 years ago, but reworked since I think).

Here is a picture to put it in context:


The wall behind where the microwave is perched is about 100mm thick (can't see the type of block) and the beam top right runs to the front of the house, through the sitting room, and supports floors etc. upstairs. To have one end resting on a thin block wall is my first concern - is it beefy enough?

The vertical wooden support rests on an elderly log:



but I can't see what it's supporting as the "ceiling" in that area is a mix of newspaper, stone, rubble and mortar of somer sort.

You can also see in that picture that although there is a sturdy block pillar sort-of supporting the thinner upstairs wall (the wall is the part that has the wooden battening on it) there is nothing running left/right to support the wall. The front/back huge timber doesn't look like it has been cut at all but who knows.



So, the million dollar question is whether a span like that of upstairs ancient portland stone can be self supporting (he hopes, naively) or whether we need to get this inspected and, probably, sorted with some form of timber or RSJ or whatever.

Opinions and thoughts welcomed!

 

[LadyArowana]

It's probably fine, after all it hasn't fallen down already. Would I be happy to know it was like that if it was mine, probably not, for peace of mind I would get a structural engineer to give it a look. The worst that you do is spend a bit on the consultation for him to tell you it's perfectly OK

 

[Flyfisher]

That may depend on the structural engineer. My guess (and it really is a guess) is that such a load-bearing beam supported on a single skin block wall would not meet current building regulations. A professional engineer would therefore have no accepted body of 'best practice' to fall back on, which might give rise to personal liability issues if he deems it to be safe and there is some subsequent problem - he'd be 'on his own'. If so, then the safe option might be to recommend that the block wall below the beam should be replaced or augmented with additional construction to bring things up to current building regulation standards. Such work may not strictly be necessary on absolute safety grounds, but ignoring formal professional advice opens up a whole new can of worms.

 

[TimHardusty]

Thanks for the opinion.

I can see that the front/back beam "ought" to have a more substantial wall. What about, in your opinions, the 30-40cm thick upstairs wall between the vertical block pillars that appears to have no support over 2x 1m spans (unless the support is buried in the newspaper/wood shavings/mortar "rubble" that's there)?

 

[Zebra]

There must be something else underneath that huge front - back beam. Can't you have a poke at the plaster to see what is underneath? I would think it does want to be sitting on something more beefy that a single skin of blockwork, but as Lady A says, if it's been like that for a long time then it's probably OK. It looks like what you describe as that "elderly log" is the remains of an earlier sole plate, cut off??

 

[Zebra]

What about, in your opinions, the 30-40cm thick upstairs wall between the vertical block pillars that appears to have no support over 2x 1m spans (unless the support is buried in the newspaper/wood shavings/mortar "rubble" that's there)?

Is this the wall that is above the top of the steps from the rest of the house in your first picture? Or above the bottom of the steps?

 

[TimHardusty]

What about, in your opinions, the 30-40cm thick upstairs wall between the vertical block pillars that appears to have no support over 2x 1m spans (unless the support is buried in the newspaper/wood shavings/mortar "rubble" that's there)?

Is this the wall that is above the top of the steps from the rest of the house in your first picture? Or above the bottom of the steps?

Yes, that's right.

It looks like what you describe as that "elderly log" is the remains of an earlier sole plate, cut off??

Yes, my guess would be it was a sole plate that ran left/right and there was another wooden vertical that supported that front/back beam. Our understanding is that what is now the kitchen (rear extension, possibly victorian, more likely 20th century sometime) was an animal pen at some time - but there is also evidence of a long removed chimney/flue in the roof void above here. Who knows. But it certainly "feels" like the back of the sitting room was opened up in to the kitchen space at some point - with those stone block pillars a later addition again, along with forming a wall out of block between the sitting room and kitchen.

Behind the thin block wall the front/back beam rests on is the sitting room and only to the right of the space behind the microwave does the wall revert to it's normal 1m thick - if there was a left/right beam this would be under the front/back I would think.

I will get a mirror and light in there and have a closer look tonight.


Oh - and above the 1m spans nearest the microwave, you can see the HUGE blocks of the upstairs outside wall (each maybe 600-700mm wide). No cracks or anything

 

[malcolm]

I've had some experience of structural engineers. Unless you get a good one they tend to suggest inappropriate solutions including lots of steel and foundations far deeper than the rest of the house (which is bad as it would cause uneven settlement, but the structural engineer will suggest underpinning the rest of the house to sort that and charge you £200/hour. I hate them with some passion).

Before they make any judgement they will need you to pick away enough to see what is there. Well worth doing that as it should answer the question. Surely even the Victorians would bung in some sort of lintel if there is half a metre of wall that they didn't want to fall on their head.

Even if there is no supporting structure at all, if it hasn't moved or cracked in 150 years it's probably working. In that case I would be careful not to remove anything that is there already. It might be important.