Wall Removals
The internal wall removals can transform your home, bringing in light and creating a more usable and modern living space. If your current layout is working, your first instinct may be to add more space, at Lead Structural Ltd. we can offer solutions using your existing layout by remodelling and giving you a space that most suits your needs.
Non-structural walls can usually be removed without any compensating measures being necessary, if however, you are removing a structural wall Clydewide are experts in this field, offering a complete service from steel design and calculation through to complete the installation.
Before
After
The starting point is to establish the purpose of the wall removals. Walls can do much more than the obvious; either dividing up space or supporting something. Typical costs are shown later on this page.
Key point 1 – Generally “non-structural wall removals ” is a wall that does not hold something up. However, although often not appreciated it can also be there to stop your house from moving sideways when the wind blows. These wall removals that stop sideways movement are called “shear walls” or “racking walls” and are also structural walls. Generally, a “structural wall” holds something up and/or stops your house from moving sideways.
Key point 2 – When you remove a wall, structural or not, you need to make sure that you are not doing something inadvertently that will cause a problem. Here are a few examples which relate to creating an open plan family area.
- Get all your gas appliances, if you have them, checked.. if you have fans in a kitchen and you open this area up to include your living/dining room with a living flame fire or other gas appliance it may compromise the safety of the appliance.
- Electrical wiring… You may be adding additional sockets and adding a bit of sound insulation. Electrics should be checked as when you increase the length or layout of an electrical circuit this can impact on the “safety trip mechanism” at your fuse board. Care is required when making good insulation as wires that are in contact with insulation can heat up.
- Fire. When you open things up you can unknowingly compromise the safety of your house. Smoke alarms, for example, may behave in a different way when space is changed.
Building Cost
The following is a very rough guide to give you a flavour of what a builder may charge. Builders rates vary depending on many factors such as how busy they are, the size of the company or individual self-employed tradespersons, vat registered or not, even how accessible your job is in terms of say parking of vans and so on.
To provide some background information. In the Glasgow / Lanarkshire area, a rough daily rate for a Joiner or Plumber is around £175.00 per day. Painters & Plasterers can charge a bit less at say £ 150.00 per day but an Electrician would be around £ 220.00 per day and an experienced labourer at £ 120.00 per day (excluding vat). A builder generally works out how long it will take to do the job, what trades are required and applies the labour rates. They add to this the cost of the material and then apply a profit margin/uplift depending on how much they want the job.
Form an opening in a non-load bearing timber partition wall between two rooms, make good the floor if not continuous under the wall and install a door frame & standard internal door, allow for plastering and painted timber facings. Tradespersons/builder are assumed not to be vat registered in the following example.
Labour:
Joiner
Plasterer
Painter (2 visits)
Total labour
2 days
1/2 day
1 day
£ 575.00 (no vat)
Materials
Waste disposal
A good door, ironmongery, frame, facings, skirtings, paint.
£ 30.00
£ 210.00
Total material
£ 240.00 (inc vat)
Total cost = 575.00 + 240.00 = 815.00 + profit / uplift? Budget around £ 800.00 to £ 1000.00 in total for a good quality job. If the tradespersons are vat registered then you’ll need to add vat to the labour.
Take down part of a load bearing timber partition wall between a kitchen and dining room to form an open plan area leaving a portion of the wall each side of a 2.4 metre wide opening with a timber structural beam over the top of the opening and supporting timbers each side. To include providing / moving extra electrical sockets, radiators and fire protection.
Budgeting around £ 3000.00 excluding vat (excluding the new kitchen cost) results in the new open living space below
Takedown the majority of a load-bearing brick wall that is both holding up part of the building above and helping to prevent the building moving sideways. Install a goal post type steel frame, fire protect the steelwork, re plaster, some electrical and plumbing work – budget around £6000.00 – £8000.00 excluding vat
Design Cost & Process
The first thing is to establish if the wall is “non-load-bearing” or not. I’ll take a typical project which is currently at an early stage as the client wishes to do the work later in the year. The fees shown reflect the fact that works proposed are more involved than just forming a new door opening.
The process is as follows:
Lead Structural Ltd. – Remove wall between kitchen and dining room to form open plan family area, associated plumbing, electrical work & some bespoke finishes.
Stage 1 – Site visit to meet Client, identify their requirements, discuss ideas/options for their new open plan kitchen/dining/family space and (once the wall has been removed) carry out a basic dimensional survey of the whole house. Set aside some two hours for this initial free consultation.
Stage 2 – I now have enough information to enable me to form a view as to what may be required, identify what areas of the if any house requires an intrusive investigation and provide a budget cost for the actual building work.
In this case, the budget cost for the building work is split into two as there are two scenarios as to how this can develop design-wise. The client understandably wishes to know roughly how much the works will cost before the investigation is carried out.
Stage 3 Scenario 1 – Non-load bearing wall. If the intrusive investigation shows that the wall is non-load bearing then the costs are as follows:
Design Fees – Detailed survey, intrusive investigation, budget cost calculations and advice, submit council application form & explanation / structural report to building control as to why the wall is non-load bearing £ 425.00 (no vat to be added to the amounts shown)
Local Authority fees for processing a request for a letter of comfort that no building warrant is required vary but budget on £100 – £150 if the value of work is less than £ 5000.00
Cost summary non-load bearing wall:
Letter of comfort from council £ 100.00 – £150.00
Design fees & budget costs £ 425.00
** Please note that in this case a site visit is recommended. There is a balance to be struck between how much intrusive investigation is carried out and the damage to finishes it causes vs the risk that it might not uncover everything.
If you decide not to progress with the work then you will need to reinstate the finishes, but if you don’t do enough investigation then the builder could well end up presenting you with a bill for unforeseen work.
Stage 3 Scenario 2 – Load bearing wall
If the investigation shows that the wall is load-bearing then the fees increase as there is more work involved.
The detailed survey, investigation and drawings are still required but now a supporting beam over the opening, beam end supports and the structure below the supports require structural design and specification. A building warrant is also now required. The costs are as follows:
Building Warrant fee payable to Council £150.00 (based on the value of works less than £ 5000.00)
Structural design and building warrant drawings, budget costs and online application on your behalf for a building warrant £ 550.00
Site visit to confirm that nothing unexpected has arisen and that the Builder is carrying out the structural work as per the drawings. For this project, one visit is anticipated.
Cost summary Load bearing wall
Council Building Warrant fee £ 150.00
Design fees – Structural calculations, Architectural (building warrant) drawings £ 550.00
Confirmation site visit £ 65.00
Turning your kitchen and dining room or kitchen and living room into one area can be achieved with our wall removal service.
Removing a load bearing wall and replacing it with a beam is significantly different from removing interior non-load bearing walls. Load bearing walls are structural elements, non-load bearing walls are not.
If you take out the load bearing wall, you compromise the structural integrity of your house. If you remove a non-load bearing wall, other factors come into play―how to dispose of the debris, how to fix the ceiling and floor, where to route vital services―but your house will not fall down.
