Its a no-no if its a leasehold property.
First step is to get written quotes from a couple of local builders, best way to find them is walk round the neighbour hood and look for a skip and a van outside a house. Once both have gone ask the householder if their work was any good and get a number.
If the place is huge once you have moved all the internal walls can we have the next Mojo’s at your place ?
WB Mincer and thanks for providing this opportunity for Balrog to step up to the oche at the slacker’s school of DIY http://forums.teamphoenixrising.net/showthread.php?t=22101&highlight=DIY (and no I still haven’t plastered the plasma hole or papered the hall - or ripped off the skirting - or … :shrug: )
Long on theory - short on implementation.
Unfortunately the sort of jobbing builder appropriate to this sort of job at reasonable cost is unlikely to carry certification or guild membership. At the end of the day if you want the full QA certification you will have to pay a surveyor to come and look and write you a simple letter but come to your own conclusion first. A wall can be load bearing for one of two reasons - There’s another wall directly above or the floor joists from the next storey bear on it. (or roof trusses)
Providing the house is a conventionally brick/block constructed UK style jobbie
A stud (wood and plasterboard) wall is almost never load bearing.
If its brick or block - what’s directly above it
a) Nothing - its not load bearing (but see 4 below)
b) A brick wall - it’s load bearing
c) A Stud Wall - its probably not load bearing
If the plasterboard of the ceiling runs continuously over the top of the wall - it’s not load bearing. The wall was put up after the ceiling.
Do the floor joists above bear on it- what’s their span from each end. Do they need the mid span support of this wall.
Generally have a look at the load path from the roof down through the building to the wall in question - is there anything relying on it for support.
I’m 99.9% certain that it’s a non loadbearing wall. It’s a stud wall that 's only 3" thick, and when you tap it there isn’t any point across it’s width that sounds solid (such that there could be a supporting girder somewhere inside the plasterboard).
The issue we have, is that we may want to sell the flat in the next couple of years, so we don’t want to have any problems with the floorplan not matching the architect drawings held by the council.
Sorry I don’t spend as much time here as I used to.
