RSJ costs

[jocelyn plummer]

I am just preparing some back of the fag packet figures for the big event :wink: ;

Cost of RSJ's?

Also assume I will need building regs to knock out the rest of a wall to enlarge the kitchen? Previous owners have already made an arch through from the kitchen to utility,( presumably took out the most they could without the need for RSJ) but it would make a super room if I take the lot down.

 

[Pford75]

£400-£500 for the calcs

£1000+ depending on the size of the beam needed

 

[Tom]

Can you not use wood instead of an RSJ?

Jaqy

 

[shelli]

you can use wood - but the engineers are scared of it because they cant look on their charts and do the load calculations like they can for steel

 

[Tom]

Yes, quite. We were very nearly 'forced' into having a house full of steel because 'wood would not have the integity required'. Total poppycock, of course!! We changed structural engineers and got what we wanted

Jaqy

 

[plumbers mate]

Blimey that's just what my smoking builders have done here. (Chimney breast cutting across two small rooms of kitchen and scullery)
Doesn't answer re prices but ---
:? beware of overkill surveyors - belt, braces and sewn to the underwear too.
The surveyor's calcs would have held up the whole house. He wouldn't listen to me (simple little lady houseowner I suppose was his unconscious thought) - the stack is jointed through to next door and was actually supported by 4 brick's worth at that side. The chimney breast was essentially just a thick dividing wall with a fireplace in.
He said I needed a m3 pad of concrete under the floor at each side of the kitchen, two brick pillars 500x250mms, one at each side, and two beams of about 300mms deep. It would have been a very heavy proscenium arch effect when finished and basically defeat the object of opening the two rooms into one.
And I couldn't get anyone to do the job under £16K+VAT.
These smoking guys have had another surveyor check and the three brick thick wall is taking the beams at one end and the three bricks thick party wall at the other. The beams are about 10ins (what's that in metric?)
It's costing £5000 for the job -includes the floor, ceiling of the scullery bit and the walls.
Why do I have three brick thick walls in the offshoot? Upstairs they are only two bricks thick. At least I have pics to prove there is no cavity now.

 

[Tom]

Wow....16k for an unnecessary job!! :shock: I'm pleased to hear you can do it for a lot less and still have room left to live in!! :lol:

Jaqy

 

[jocelyn plummer]

Thanks for the tip offs!
xx

 

[Taff in Glaws]

I paid £550 for rsj to span approx 6 metres with some plating welded to it for half the length (haven't got exact spec to hand). Calcs cost me £300. Donkey work and lifting cost me quite a few pints of tanglefoot!

 

[Roger H]

I used wood in preference to RSJs. Finnforest 'Kerto S', an 'engineered' beam that the structural engineers all liked. Can at least be sawn on site, drilled into with relative ease and looks fine exposed. Was cheaper than the steel I priced for and a lot easier to manhandle.

Info at: http://www.ascinfo.co.uk/9/resourcefile/22/43/01/Kerto-S.htm