Another....... load bearing wall or not question

[Timmo65]

Hello all,
I was hoping for some advice please. I have spent a lot of time looking for the answer to this but with no luck.

I am trying to remove a downstairs thermalite wall between what was the back end of an integral garage and a small study next to it. The previous owner had a garage conversion done and the wall in question had an arch way put in to join the rooms. I want to take this out completely now.

I made some nice big holes in the ceiling and top of the wall to see what was up there and found things that indicate its probably not a supporting wall, like ...

It runs parallel to the floor joists above and there is no wall above it.

I took the arch completely out but left the concrete lintel in until I removed some of the highest blocks to see more. To one side I spotted a joist going the other way resting on the top of the blocks. It looks like its two joists joined together back to back and it runs through one of the parallel joists where its secured to it with fixing plates of some sort.

The double joist runs from just beyond the wall to be removed - but not up to the next joist and the other end I think goes into the kitchen and from what it looks like it sits on top of a dividing wall in the kitchen. Again there is no wall above this kitchen dividing wall. The kitchen wall is about 3ms long this joist on top of it runs for about another 2ms until it ends sitting on my suspect wall.

So, to summarize, it first looked like it was not a supporting wall but now it looks like something is siting on it but I still can't see exactly what it can be supporting bearing in mind all the above floors would be supported by the other parallel joists.

I know this is hard to visualize and if I get some people wanting more info I'll try and put some pics up.

I appreciate your advice,

Thanks
Martin

Just added some pics....

 

[big-all]

no expert

i suggest you get some support under both joists urgently

top one may or may not depends on the interaction with the joist its end on to

the bottom one is definatly load bearing because it has a joist hanging off of it

without knowing what else goes on under the floor or on top its impossible to know how much load is on any joist

 

[Timmo65]

All the photos are of the same thing.

The double joists are still supported ok on the exisitng wall and I did quickly slip out a block to take the photo which is now back in place just to be on the safe side.

Thinking about it some more I guess it probably is load bearing as the parallel joist is cut and then hung from this problem joist on both sides so its taking the load of the split joist...... I think .....

Assuming this is the case, what is my best way round this .........fit an RSJ across ? can I cut into the joist and support it with a steel in the void to get a flat finish ? or even extend the joist sitting on the wall further to hang it from the next perpendicular joist ?

Confused............

 

[big-all]

aaahhh got you the bottom picture is through the hole you can see in the first picture so the joist on the hanger is crossing your head in the first picture

was there ever a chimnie stair or simmilar just beyond the double joist or whats above it!!!

 

[Timmo65]

Yep you've got it..........
the house was built in 1997, no alterations, no chimneys. That wall is just the back end of the integral garage. I took measurements downstairs of the distance of that joist from the side wall and upstairs there are no walls that are over it for sure . It only seems to be sitting exactly on top of a dividing wall in the kitchen with this end - about 2ms just floating in mid air and resting on the top of this wall.

 

[Timmo65]

I thought I'd better finish this one off too.
I ended up getting an Acro prop and putting it under. We are having an extension done so I got the architect to plan for this too. It ended up not being too tricky and I did it myself. Another joist was bolted to the existing one and also set on hangers each end. Another hanger was bolted on to the side where it now supports the previously wall supported beam.

I had to drill it and pull the wiring thru, rerun the central heating pipes.I got the BCO to give it the ok and then put up a new ceiling and all is done !

 

[big-all]

thaks very much for the feed back very much appreciated