Replacing internal wall

[Westholme]

I forgot to say that an old OS map should give you some idea how far the scullery extended, if that is not clear. 1:2500 maps are available free online.

 

[Greenwoods]

Thanks for the replies - yes, I think an SE would be good, was thinking about this.

I've been exposing more of the join between the party wall and the main house and conservatory - looks now like a new wall was built at some point, replacing the old party wall, maybe when the conservatory was put up, since it's a concrete blockwork cavity wall.

 

[Gothichome]

Greenwood’s, to my eye there is some thing more going on here. I see a slight sagging of your lintel to the right just off centre of your pictures, also further back into the kitchen is see the sagging in the floor joists. Combined with the two cracks in your rendering at the lower corners of the bathroom window. It would seem to me the whole assembly is failing.
Sistering of beams is no big deal if done properly, this means glued, bolted and plated on both sides. Looking at your Beam It seems not to be so. Just through bolts you mention, could the holes for the bolts be too large for the bolt. This would cause the sistering to not do its job.
For the sagging in the ceiling joists further back, I wonder if your kitchen was originally built as two rooms with a load bearing wall in the middle.
Ron

 

[Greenwoods]

Thanks for post Gothichome - the sagging further back is where we had a load of water damage (thanks to a rat, eating through shower waste pipe!) - bodged a bit of plasterboard over the cracks/holes/etc, just to hold it until the day it all gets ripped down...

The houses on our road move about a fair bit each year - we're all on a hill and cracks come and go - while being a cr*p job, I think it's held ok, the cracking in the render above is, I think, more due to bad render and the house moving about, especially last summer.

I'm now going to strip everything out, back to the walls and the ceiling joists, so can see what's going on.

Re: conservatory - I'm thinking that the party wall was built along with the conservatory, on a (substantial) concrete base and it's probably the house that has moved, with the conservatory and wall staying put. Might look in to getting a flexible join done for the new conservatory, so the movement doesn't cause any problems.

 

[Greenwoods]

Looking through the gap between what was the side (front to back) wall of the house and the back wall - I'm looking at a cavity... I'm guessing that some one has added blocks in to make a cavity wall on the neighbours side.

 

[MikeG]

Have you booked a structural engineer yet? Don't do anything else until you've done that.

 

[MikeG]

Duplicate.

 

[88v8]

Six foot span? No problem with wood. Oak. The main problem is that the wood is on its side. If those beams were the right way up, assuming that they're nice dense wood not the modern rubbish, there'd probably be no problem.
Sometimes harder to unravel someone's bodging than it would have been to do it properly in the first place.

Ivor

 

[Westholme]

I think the span between the side walls is more likely to be eight feet. In view of the movement of the house, I suggest restoring what was removed, i.e. imperial size bricks and lime mortar. Assuming you have a solid 9" wall, adding 1½ / 2 / 2½ bricks either side would reduce the span by about 2 / 3 / 4 feet.

The new lintel could be an inverted T steel lintel, e.g. Stressline SL200 'T'. As everything was taken out up to the ceiling, it and most of the new brickwork could be installed without affecting the existing beam. Once the latter and the brickwork above and below it have been been exposed, you should be able to see for yourself what needs doing.

The join between house and conservatory looks to be a real bodge job.

 

[MikeG]

.........The join between house and conservatory looks to be a real bodge job.

The junction with neighbouring party wall looks even worse.

 

[Greenwoods]

Thanks for replies - yes, the work is to the standard I expected - the light switch for the conservatory was put on sideways... so, if someone couldn't be bothered to do a light switch the normal way up, the rest of the work is no real surprise!

 

[Greenwoods]

I think the span between the side walls is more likely to be eight feet. In view of the movement of the house, I suggest restoring what was removed, i.e. imperial size bricks and lime mortar. Assuming you have a solid 9" wall, adding 1½ / 2 / 2½ bricks either side would reduce the span by about 2 / 3 / 4 feet.

The new lintel could be an inverted T steel lintel, e.g. Stressline SL200 'T'. As everything was taken out up to the ceiling, it and most of the new brickwork could be installed without affecting the existing beam. Once the latter and the brickwork above and below it have been been exposed, you should be able to see for yourself what needs doing.

The join between house and conservatory looks to be a real bodge job.

I'd like to do a lime mortar and imperial size bricks job, but would I get away with concrete blocks/standard mortar here, do you think? I'm going to get a price for the lime mortar/imp bricks way of doing, but, due to it being 2 small walls, which will be pretty much internal, wondering if the concrete block way would be ok (to free up money for elsewhere).

For the rest of the kitchen, I'm going to take back to the brick and ceiling/floor beams and then have these redone with Adaptavate lime plaster and boards. Also going to scrape back to the original limecrete floor put stone tiles on (with breathable adhesive).

 

[MikeG]

.........I'd like to do a lime mortar and imperial size bricks job, but would I get away with concrete blocks/standard mortar here, do you think? ........

You appear to be ignoring advice. I'll say it for the last time: you need a structural engineer to look at this. This opening is not something that you should be playing with on an ad hoc basis. I don't want to be scaremongering but you have a potential building failure or collapse on your hands. I'm an architect, as I said before, and you should be taking the advice you've been given, urgently.

 

[george2019]

.........I'd like to do a lime mortar and imperial size bricks job, but would I get away with concrete blocks/standard mortar here, do you think? ........

You appear to be ignoring advice. I'll say it for the last time: you need a structural engineer to look at this. This opening is not something that you should be playing with on an ad hoc basis. I don't want to be scaremongering but you have a potential building failure or collapse on your hands. I'm an architect, as I said before, and you should be taking the advice you've been given urgently.

This structural engineer agrees - it won't cost more than £100 to £250 for an inspection and letter report with outline design. There's a few dodgy looking things going on here.

Don't get me wrong, a competent builder would put this right soon enough, but the combination of long-ish span, cracking, dodgy party wall details (Party Wall Act implication), movement and separation in the ground floor wall and a dodgy conservatory means a structural survey should be done.

 

[Crazycacti]

I have a very similar situation with a very large wooden lintel holding up the opening into a 2 storey annex. Its one hell of a piece of timber. Any how, one end has rotted because of previous owners not being great with the upkeep of the outside and penetrating damp getting in. I'll have a fair amount of 130y+ seasoned firewood soon.

Had 2 engineers come in, one went pale and the other said he'd seen it all before and was a pretty easy solution. 3 builders came in, 2 ran and the other can't wait to get stuck in even though he has a lot on - seems to like older buildings. No builder, architect or engineer where I live knows what lime is anymore so its a steel with cemented blocks going in (additive into cement to stop shrinkage apparently). No other choice but to go with this so it will be what it will be.

Definitely get an engineer in but make sure you do some digging because there are certainly some that have never seen an older building and are no doubt experts in recent builds but start freaking at small things that turn out to be nothing on the older builds (view of our second engineer).

Saying that... watch my house fall down now.

 

[Greenwoods]

.........I'd like to do a lime mortar and imperial size bricks job, but would I get away with concrete blocks/standard mortar here, do you think? ........

You appear to be ignoring advice. I'll say it for the last time: you need a structural engineer to look at this. This opening is not something that you should be playing with on an ad hoc basis. I don't want to be scaremongering but you have a potential building failure or collapse on your hands. I'm an architect, as I said before, and you should be taking the advice you've been given, urgently.

Thanks, but I'm not ignoring advice Mike G - I'm going to get a structural engineer in.

It'll be easier to see exactly what's going on when the kitchen has been stripped back, so a SE can see everything that's there.

This is a question about using concrete blocks instead of bricks and lime mortar in the space and its effects on breathability - return walls and a lintel need to be built at some stage, ie after an SE has been in and advised what needs to be done.

 

[Flyfisher]

I don't want to be scaremongering but you have a potential building failure or collapse on your hands. I'm an architect, as I said before, and you should be taking the advice you've been given, urgently.

Perhaps an acrow prop (or two) under that opening would be prudent in this situation. Would at least buy some safe time while decisions are being made.

 

[MikeG]

All he needs to see he can already see. The only useful addition would be to clear the entirety of the plasterboard covering the timber at the opening, and as I said days ago, you could then put an acrow in there at mid-span. Discussing the nature of support walls with us, without having had the SE's advice, is pointless. He'll tell you what you need to do, and what the support can be made of.......as well as telling you about the foundation underneath it and the padstone details. Make your preferences known to him, and he'll design those in where he can. From an architectural point of view I can tell you that the only place that your material choice makes any difference to the performance of the building (in terms of energy conservation and vapour transmission) is where such materials are outside the line of your proposed new extension. What happens inside that is immaterial from that view point. All that is entirely secondary to sorting the structure out, and that can only start with a site visit by a structural engineer..........as I first told you back on the 26th of last month. You can perhaps understand my impatience when you are still asking the same questions ten days later, without having acknowledged the importance of the SE until a few minutes ago.