Structural
Taking walls out, putting steel in, and making sure what is left is holding the house up.
What it involves
This is the work that has to be right. Every opening we form is designed by a structural engineer, sized for the actual load rather than what looks about right, and signed off by Building Control. It is not the part of the job to save money on, and we will not pretend otherwise.
Where we do this work
The single most common structural job in Basingstoke is taking out the wall between the kitchen and the dining room on an estate house — the layout that made sense in 1972 and makes none now. On these houses that wall is very often load-bearing, carrying the floor above and sometimes a bit of the roof, and the first-floor layout usually needs the steel to land somewhere specific. It is a well-trodden job and we have done a lot of them.
Basingstoke pageIn Hook the structural work divides again along the village and estate line. On the older cottages you are dealing with solid walls, sometimes lath and plaster, and a roof that may be spreading — so the calculation is not simply about the new opening but about what taking the wall out does to everything above it. On the estate housing it is a straightforward beam over a straightforward opening.
Hook pageStructural alterations in Winchester come with an extra layer. On a listed building, internal structural work needs listed building consent whether or not anyone can see it from the street, and removing a chimney breast or an internal wall in one without consent is an offence, not a technicality. On the unlisted Victorian terraces the work itself is familiar — party walls both sides, which brings the Party Wall Act into it, and lime mortar that behaves differently from cement when you cut into it.
Winchester pageChimney breasts are the Tadley job people ask about most. The housing here was built for solid fuel and a great many properties still carry a breast through both floors and into the loft, eating a metre of every room it passes through for a flue nobody has used since the seventies. Taking one out is not a demolition job — whatever is above it has to be caught and supported, usually on gallows brackets or a beam, and it needs an engineer and building control the same as any other opening.
Tadley pageWe will come out, look at the property and put a written quote together. No charge for the visit.
The honest answer is that you often cannot tell by looking, and the usual clues — which way the joists run, whether it lines up with a wall above — are indicators rather than proof. We check properly, and where there is any doubt the engineer decides, not us.
For any load-bearing removal, yes. We arrange it and the calculations go to Building Control with the application.
Usually a few days. The propping goes in, the wall comes out, the steel goes up and the load is transferred. It is noisy and dusty for a short, planned period rather than for weeks.
It needs fire protection, which normally means plasterboard. Whether it is flush with the ceiling or forms a downstand depends on the design, and we will show you which you are getting before we order it.
More of what we do
Get in touch
Tell us what you are planning and we will come out, look at the house and put a written quote together with the costs set out.
Six quick fields. We answer every enquiry ourselves.
