Concrete ceiling and load bearing walls...or not?

[Peterpan101]

Hi, I am looking for comments regarding the basis of the walls in this one storey flat roofed building which is attached to a Victorian property built 1888. The ceiling is concrete and I want to open up the area, taking out the small brick walls between each of the utility rooms. I suspect the only load bearing wall that I would like to widen is marked A on the plan. However, I am unsure as to whether the other walls B and C are load bearing, given the concrete ceiling. The builder I have asked is none the wiser and neither is the non-structural surveyor, on his initial visit.

The surveyor (non structural), wants to charge me £2K to draw plans (and does not include even include a structural survey which will be needed), to then submit to the building regulators.

If after the structural survey, the structural surveyor simply states a reinforced beam will be required to replace wall A, then the £2k charged by the non-structural surveyor is a lot of money; just to draw-up this basic requirement into a plan.

However, if the structural surveyor suggests a lot more needs to be done to support the ceiling in light of the removal of the other walls, then £2k might be worth it.

I plan to engage a structural surveyor prior to agreeing to the non structural Surveyor's services.

I would appreciate your thoughts on the construction of this building and whether the smaller internal walls are likely to be structural or not, given the concrete ceiling. Many thanks

 

[Peterpan101]

Here's picture of the outside

 

[^woody^]

The roof is unlikely to be reinforced, in which case the walls would be load bearing. You need to pay for the engineer's advice. Whether his expert advice is simply for a reinforced beam or not is immaterial, it's still expert advice and you need to pay for it.

That's the way it is with professional services, designers can only design within their particular competencies, and you need to pay for any specialist advice.

 

[Peterpan101]

Thanks Woody

 

[Ian H]

Why not go straight to the structural engineer?

 

[Peterpan101]

From what I understand, the surveyor has to write the report, create the plan and make the necessary recommendations based on the structural engineers advice. I have been told the structural engineer charges about £200. So I am not quite sure what the surveyor does apart from make plans and submit to building regulators. All he is doing is taking advice from a structural engineer. If that s the case I am wondering whether I can submit the application myself with the help of a friend to make the plans using CAD software?

 

[^woody^]

You are using a surveyor to presumably design alterations to conform to building regualtions and any other requirement relating to that, including advice on the need for planning permission or not.

A structural engineer will most likely not know about any of this.

These are two distinct processes. Whether one person can do both, or you need one person for each, or you can do both or one is another matter.

The designer/surveyor is not taking advice from the structural engineer, but is incorporating the engineer's specialist design into the overall building regulation application.

 

[Peterpan101]

Thanks for clarifying woody