Wall plate removal as part of converting to solid floor?

[amin]

I’m looking into replacing the original timber suspended floor in my Edwardian house with a solid floor - to support UFH and also insulate it better. While lifting the floorboards, I’ve found timber wall plates embedded in both the external and internal walls - these support the joists and sit just above a slate DPC.
 

To move to a solid floor, I’d need to remove these wall plates throughout the house otherwise they'd end up in the build up without ventilation. Has anyone tackled this before? Is it realistically doable - or not worth the hassle? 

 

[Mr Punter]

Well that has messed with your plans!  For the internal wall you could chop out sections of timber and infill with brickwork.  Maybe for the outside walls you could cut out sections of timber with a recip saw and infill with brickwork.  Any timber left will probably rot quite quickly and any fungus may travel through the brickwork in search of food.

[SimonD]

With the amount of work required there, I'd be very tempted to consider installing a new suspended timber floor and then full filling the void with eps beads instead. That means the existing timbers are insulated and in effect become part of a warm floor construction. There used to be good reference on the old green building forum by someone who did this a lot on retrofits to good effect. With this you'll also get a lot of insulation suitable for ufh too. If I did my house again, this is what I would do.

 

 

[amin]

My worry with taking out the wall plate is just how much of it there is and just not being able to take parts of it out. 
 

EPS beads is one I haven’t come across. How would that work with the wall plate where it is - that would still end up being on the cold side?

[Nickfromwales]

My worry would be those walls simply disintegrating the second you start to interfere with what is taking all of the weight of them.

 

Even underpinning, very slowly and painstakingly, would prob be a worry. Any kind of vibration or percussion is an enemy of those walls for sure.

 

Sounds a bit drastic, but can you drop those walls and replace in stud? You’re quite committed atm, and not much of the existing there to tie back in to if you put timber suspended back in.

[saveasteading]

I'd be reluctant  to touch it.  You can never quite get the support back under the bricks, and they might move during the works.

 

The eps might be a brilliant idea: I thinking.

where is your finished floor level?

[amin]

The internal wall I may have to rebuild parts anyway because of supports I need for some steels that are going in - so dropping that wall may be on the cards regardless. Worst case I can tie the joists to the timber on the other side which is still intact. On the external wall side the joists just sat in the well pockets. 
 

Joists have a 250m void below with 100mm joists.