SiD the Turtle

Hi folks, Got a weird one here. House is a 1930s semi. There are two bedrooms front and back, that are separated by TWO walls, as in the middle of them are two cupboards and the chimney. The chimney is out of use as both walls are sitting on RSJs when the walls below were removed in the 80s. We want to repurpose the front bedroom's cupboard into a shelf or 'study nook' and noticed that above the cupboard door was plasterboard so we simply knocked it all out. Then we discovered that there were two substantial pieces of wood making up the cupboard frame, connected to the party wall and the chimney: I want to cut this out, but checked in the loft first. The loft joists run perpendicular to these beams and are resting on the brick wall behind. My only concern is that the joists run all the way from the front of the house to the back are are actually two pieces of wood connected together through a join- that join sitting above the cupboard here. A diagram to help: Can we remove this wood? If we do the front half of the two joists sitting on this wood will only supported by the adjoining joist, which itself is sitting on the brick. Hope that makes sense!

Hi folks, We're renovating our 1930s semi and as part of that installing wet UFH. We've already done it in part of the house that's a 1980s extension and used the metal joist spreader plates, this works well. Unfortunately, in the 1930s part of the house the joists aren't the current standard of width apart so I can't install spreader plates. Wunda support (who have been fantastic thus far) suggested two options: Batten perpendicular to the joists to the correct width. Install chipboard directly onto the joists then stick Wundatherm panels over the top. Both options we lose 20mm off the floor. A builder suggested doing a thin concrete screed, but that's out of my skillset. The benefits of option 2 are not having to install insulation between the joists and not having to faff with battening. Just replace the original timber floor with 22m chipboard and glue it down. Has anyone done something similar? How did you find it? We were at the flooring supplier yesterday (looking at QuickStep engineered wood) and they said you need to make sure the floor is super flat else it will be squeaky and the boards may separate over time. Anyone experienced that?