Open up stairway - not so sure

[8ball]

Hello fellow "buildies" I am planning to open up my stairs in the near future but have a few questions regarding its structure and surroundings. hopefully below you can see a picture of what is to be removed and also a floor plan.

 

I would supply better pics but I am away from home at the moment.

 

So when I first started thinking about removing the wall I thought it would be simple but the more I think about it the more unsure I become. One thing is for certain is that the floor joists run from the front to the back of the house so only 1 joist would be resting on the wall.

 

The things I am concerned about is the fact that the wall is breeze block, why the need for it to be so solid? at present as you can see from the floor plan it has a small bedroom above it with an airing cupboard holding a small water cylinder which would have some weight to it but joists run front to back so should be good.

 

So the house on the ground floor has an internal load bearing wall stretching the length of the living room and then stretching through to meet the garage but up stairs the load from the joists in the loft are only supported about 2/3 of the width of the house by the wall inbetween the 2 larger bedrooms as the landing and stairs create a large gap so I was wondering if the small bedroom wall near the airing cupboard are load bearing and transferring down onto this breeze block wall at the stairs.

 

****The kitchen and half of the family room at the back of the house is a single story extension with nothing above it*****

 

Any thoughts from you guys would be really helpful but I am leaning towards getting a structural engineer to do some calcs.

 

Ta guys - Neil

 

 

[ProDave]

The only way to be sure is lift some floor boards in the small bedroom immediately above the wall you want to remove to see what it's doing.

 

Chances are it is only built of block because "that's what they did" or are there other walls in the house built of stud and plasterboard?

 

It was common in the past to have load bearing walls upstairs that are not immediately below the load bearing walls downstairs so there will  be some bending forces on the joists, but hopefully they will be sized for that, if not there may sometimes be some sag in the joists.
 

[8ball]

15 minutes ago, ProDave said:

The only way to be sure is lift some floor boards in the small bedroom immediately above the wall you want to remove to see what it's doing.

 

Chances are it is only built of block because "that's what they did" or are there other walls in the house built of stud and plasterboard?

 

It was common in the past to have load bearing walls upstairs that are not immediately below the load bearing walls downstairs so there will  be some bending forces on the joists, but hopefully they will be sized for that, if not there may sometimes be some sag in the joists.
 

 

Come to think of it there only seems to be stud and plasterboard on any areas of the house that have been modified since when it was built in 1985, as you say maybe lifting the floor boards upstairs will give a clearer picture of whats going on.

 

the airing cupboard itself is built entirely of breeze block as are the bathroom walls.

 

Where the arch is in the hallway downstairs used to be a door way and I was suspicious of why it was not completely removed when the layout was changed, maybe they just liked arches as there are another 3 made of stone like the one in the background of the 1st piccy. I will be removing them ASAP as I keep knocking my head on them and ruining my handsome looks.

 

Ta Dave

[Simplysimon]

the staircase should be located on a trimmer joist which bridles the opening. the strings should be cut over this to locate it. there should be fixing on the underside of the strings to fix the stair to the walls. if there was only one wall, i.e. to the side wall which is staying then there would be no difference in the fixing to the trimmer and wall. the only difficulty you would have is that the new open side, will not have a balustrade.

 

simon