Home DIY

Fucking hell!

Bet you kept that door closed once it was uncovered 🤣

Ah, this thread always makes me feel better about the studwall I'm putting up haha.

Wow, that's impressive in a horrifying kind of way. The weight of the RSJ is making me think you're right, I'll get somebody to come round and quote for doing it all properly before taking it any further.

It’ll either be fine or it won’t, and you don’t want to be the one responsible if it isn’t :) we were unlucky, here’s hoping you get away with it.

The gravel bike looks incredible, are there any other photos of it kicking about?

Storage looks dialled also.

not to derail the thread too much.
Some pics hoops took in the Cannondale thread
https://www.lfgss.com/comments/16344440/

I kicked myself for missing the Tarmac he was selling a while back. Decided not to ponder too long this time.

And one I snapped on collection

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Is it a cowboy job to box in an acro prop ;)

"Derail It Yourself"

Cheers!

Jesus.

Yes to the board in an acro around it and run though.
Have a mate who really knows what he is doing, but does go through a decent supply of props. I think it's more free forgets to pick them up from job after he's finished than that they get left inside a wall. But can totally see it happening.

If we every get the chance would totally build our own from new, either wholey or prefab a passivhaus job with a nice view. Land cost aside they really don't cost as much as I thought. Esp when a smaller, less efficient, potential for instant negative equity, and attached, and also not built well, "bellway" "home" is getting on for £350/400k. Proper sick of finding other people's trash jobs in houses.

You need the RSJ to have min 100mm bearing at each end.. Can you expose any more of the beam to see it's extents.. It should really be sitting on a padstone at each end.. Shouldn't be any issue straightening the wall up..

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Just a small point. We had an RSJ installed as part of an extension - maybe a bit longer than yours. It had to be specced by an engineer before installation and the plans for the RSJ went to the building control for approval. The RSJ itself had to be painted with some ‘special’ fire resistant paint before installation. We managed to get this all relatively ‘cheaply’ but it wasn’t cheap! My point is that you may need some form of certificate etc regarding the beam as part of building control. Might be an issue should you sell the house.
I’m sure others can advise if that is the case. I’m in NI so things may be different here.

before we had our steels put in, building control also made us dig down to investigate the footings to make sure there was enough there to support the point loading either side of the opening. might not be an issue here but may be another thing to get checked out or at least ask about if you're getting it investigated anyway?

Due to a probably overly-cautious SE/BC, we ended up with four sides of steel to hold everything up (including our neighbours, I imagine). Really didn't enjoy that surprise, but felt much more comfortable in the house knowing it had all been done. We also got a much better opening than we had originally expected.

Would be interested to know wha the process is for further works should you have RSJs and whatnot in already.

Our place probably has four (if it was done right, lol/yolo etc!) but we want to remove another internal wall in the future which would mean removing two of them and replacing with (at a guess) a single 5m beam.

I guess it will probably involve lots of investigation as per bigshape above and lots of belt and braces like in 6pts case.

I'll start saving now then.

to clarify, ours was an external wall so it might not be relevant as the steel was holding the back of the house up rather than the middle.

Just seen this super useful diagram, thanks so much for knocking it up. Makes understanding a lot easier when inevitably things can get lost in translation. I'll look again with the torch to see if I can see said padstones and if not peel more plaster away.

@tgr @bigshape thanks for explaining this. Do you think you could expect your usual builder to know about these things? If you don't know no worries, you've all be so useful already.

In terms of builder knowledge, now you know a little more from here, whoever comes to look at the job don't feed them anything and see what they say / make a judgment.

That's what we did when choosing a builder to refurbish this place - I know little bits (not a building expert) and some guys I just showed around and outlined expectations and they just nodded. Others challenged and said things like "well, we can't do that because X, how about Y? That would solve it and also provide Z"

You'll know if they know their stuff. Or not.

You won't be able to see the pad stones as they'll be sat underneath the RSJ. On the right-hand side it looks like there is new gypsum plaster around the end of where a pad stone should be.

I'd chip a bit of that off on the underside of where the RSJ should be. if that makes sense.

I'm no engineer (so ignore what i'm about to say) but the arch doesn't look like it would bear any load, and so padstone or not, the picture technics posted would be how it's loaded.

luckily we had a very experienced and competent builder, chosen on the strength of work i'd seen of his on friend's houses, and had a great experience with him. (we're not in london though so not worth giving you his details)

as terlg says, i'd probably pull the plaster off either end of the RSJ to see where it's sitting and what it's sitting on. the wall's going to need re-plastering anyway so you might as well!

I would also check if this is a loadbearing wall or not - check if the wall continues above and also the direction of the joists at first floor level (perpendicular to the floorboards)

Just knock the house down and re do it

Does anyone have any tips for dry cutting 20mm porcelain tiles with a diamond blade? I'm trying with a 9" and 5" angle grinder and getting some chipping - marginally less with the 9". It seems to be the trailing edge of the blade pulling material out as it rotates up. Maybe I'm being too fussy but I thought it would chip less than it is.

No Problem.. I'm based in NI, but over here you can get building control to do a retrospective approval.. they will call out and have a look and as long as it's got decent bearing at each end it should be fine.

That RSJ look massively over specced.. An opening that size could be done with a concrete lintel

We had an engineer spec the removal of our wall. Originally the builder was going to use the existing bits of wall at either side, but the bricks were on their edge and the wall could be taken apart by hand once the plaster was off.
So they re built the bits at either end. Also had to reinforce the sections under the new piers, with steel at one end.

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There are different designs of tile cutting blade, some are designed to work wet, others dry. Some suit stone more than porcelain. Have you looked at the design of blade you're using to see if there's something more suited to the tiles you're cutting?

I would say a little bit of chipping (shelling) of the edges strikes me as fairly normal. I use a file that's normally used for natural stone to dress edges occasionally.