It is popular these days to remove walls in a house to open up the areas and to create an open plan environment.
Also the removal of large sections of external walls is common for the fitting of bi-fold or sliding doors.
This guide is to assist you with what may be required.
When walls are removed the rest of the house will still need to be supported to prevent it from damage or collapse.
Steel beams are one option that can be used and they are very effective on longer openings, however the correct beam sizing must be used. A beam that is too small could cause the building to collapse and a beam that is too large is an expensive waste of steel.
Beams can also be used to add extensions to your house. These could be simple lean-to roofs or full load bearing structures.
For any modification to your house you will need to check if you need planning permission or not. This is not always easy to determine but the Planning Portal website is a good place to start (http://www.planningportal.co.uk)
There are requirements in The Building Regulations Document A on the size of walls & openings. This guide limits the size of openings in any one wall to 5 metres long. This document also offers empirical rules that can be used for common building situations.
The calculations offered by this site are not limited by the Building Regulations and will allow beam lengths greater than 5 metres, however longer beams may require additional support or columns. This could result in the modification to the house foundations or the need for a new concrete base.
Some of the smaller beams that are used are shown in this table, however larger ones may be required depending on many factors:
- The length of the beam
- The load placed on the beam
- How those loads are applied on the beam
- The stresses within the beam
- And how the beam deflects (bends)
The beams that are normally used are Universal Beams otherwise known as UB’s or RSJ’s (or IPE’s if you are using European size beams). These are I shaped beams ( ) that are specifically designed to act as a horizontal beam element using the minimum amount of steel for the maximum amount of strength. However other shapes can be used like Universal Column (UC) H shapes, Rectangular Hollow Sections (RHS) or Channel Sections (PFC)