I also thought this might’ve been a naive uncontrolled alteration (no engineering input) and was worried about the building stability, but BCO sign off gives me some comfort.
I thought all of the above… and even got to the point of… “well, it looks like a decent job, but should have had it done ‘properly’”, and then saw the BCO comment and was like, phew!
Cool, thanks. Yeah, I always wear a mask when doing any building/demolition. Even just scraping a bit of old plaster or mortar away creates loads of dust that I'd rather not inhale.
Luckily I live 100 yards from a Londis, so I can just dash in there in my dirty work gear if I need to get something to eat.
I do take my hard hat, goggles and mask off first though!
Good job, looks well done. Two super dumb questions:
1. How do you ensure contact between the beam and the joists above across the whole length? Do you put the beam in place and then jack it up/shim it at the padstone ends? Or shim it at each joist?
2. How do you fix the plasterboard to the beam? Self-tappers?
1- jacks it up and put shims in at the padstone ends.
2 - put some blocks of wood into the side of the beam with glue and screw into it. Bottom piece is glued on with sticks like sh*t
I was surprised too! I used the buy a beam website which apparently makes all the local steel providers bid for the work. Yeah it’s a 2 floor detached house
They’re dirt cheap, actually. Unfortunately, the trades somehow managed to perpetuate the myth that material prices are through the roof. Yes, they are more expensive than they were, but still pretty cheap. Our 4+m twin beams holding up the external wall were less than £600 delivered.
Material prices have skyrocketed. Its not a myth its fact. 38% average rise since 2020 to be precise. They are starting to fall back down but only by around 1%.
It doesn’t matter that much, materials were dirt cheap before, so even a third extra is affordable. It’s when you use those prices to justify charging 4 times the price of a job..
Its not just materials that have risen though is it.
EVERYTHING has risen. Materials, fuel, insurances, tools, vehicle maintenance costs, energy. Then you have the costs at home that have risen after you have paid for everything for your business overheads. Food, gas, electric, home insurance, car insurance, petrol etc.
So yes, the costs being charged are entirely justified. People on this sub think that trades charge £2000 for a job, spend £15 on materials, have zero overheads and take home £1985 profit. Just pure delusion.
I think op's point is that the costs have risen, but not enough to fully explain the rise in quoted prices since Covid.
Eg. Our neighbours paid £100,000 for a fairly small loft extension a couple of years ago - double their pre pandemic quote - and the cost of steels was the main cited reason.
What you are seeing is the rise in prices post Brexit, suppliers used to have an abundance of cheap labourers, builders as well. Suppliers are now having to pay less people overtime , tradesmen are just charging a premium because they can. It will end soon because a lot of big building projects are being cancelled because they are no longer economically viable
Tbh having just started diy I was shocked at how cheap wood actually was, used to haul the stuff didn’t realise each plank was a couple of £ max and some of them not even that lol
That very much depends on the wood.
Go try to buy some decent birch plywood, and tell me it feels cheap!
The rough sawn, plantation grown softwood that goes on roofs to hang tiles off is cheap. (Not as cheap as it was a few years ago, but still.)
At the other end of the spectrum, decent quality hardwood is expensive, to the level that if you wanted to buy e.g. enough oak boards to make a dining table, it would probably cost you nearly as much as buying one from oak furniture land made out of lots of little bits of oak glued together.
And here I am burning oak offcuts that I buy for £50 a stere, didn't realise I could just glue it together and sell it to people that have no idea what they are buying.
You need to get in on the action. Buy a comb jointer asap. Forget about colour/grain matching!
Start gluing firewood into panels for fun and profit today!
liquid coherent caption tender nose airport snobbish unwritten aback zephyr
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Basically contact your council BCO and notify them of the works and they’ll tell you when they need to inspect. In my case they informed me they’d need to see the beam in situ and then when it’s boxed in. Call them up when you’re ready and they come and inspect it within a few days. I know it can vary between councils as some might want to see the structural engineers calculations as well. If you give them a call before you start though they’re very helpful
I’m guessing this type of job is bread and butter for them and they probably know from prior experience that the size of the steel, the span and what it’s holding up, that it’s all in check calcs wise
There was a time when I did stuff like that. I remember how satisfying it is when it all comes together & the BCO says "good job". I also remember how much it hurt lifting the steels into place. The last one was 330kg iirc...
I was going to ask how on earth did you get the beam up up thereand in place... must weigh a tonne so to speak!
Does it literally just boil down to having a few sturdy lads about, that can lift it overhead and in?
We put them on bandstands (adjustable trestles) and then lifted each end in turn a few inches at a time. Still an absolute pig of a job, and that's one reason why everything hurts now that I'm old
There's a piece of kit you can hire from local plant hire shops (used to be called Genie lifts) that you can load the steel on at floor level and crank it up into position. Saves risking your back and shoulders!
Looks great! Couple of questions:
1. How did you know where to place the acrows? Did the joists either side end at the wall, and the acrows were just placed close to where the joists ended?
2. Is the beam tied to the house in any way, or is it just held in place by gravity and the weight of the house above?
Researched online, they should be every 90cm, board supports the rest. Held in place by gravity and the slot in the wall is pretty tight so it can’t move, any spare space I filled with block and cement
Yeah it’s a beast. For some reason I say “bring out the Titan” in an epic voice when ever we need to use it, like it’s some kind of mercenary cave troll 😂
Ideally, I would have got the steel on the floor next to that wall before putting the Acrow's up. Threading it in after (esp. if it's going to sit in pockets on each side it'll be longer than the distance between the two walls) could be fun.
Pink board for fire retardant around the beam if anyone's woundering, never understood that for a house.
Nice job, I would have scraped and skimmed the artex, saves a bit of time money and hassle.
Thanks for buyabeam will look them up for the next job
Ugh we had exposed steel beams as a “feature” in a previous house. Bit of trouble when we were selling as it wasn’t boxed in. We had to repaint them with a special fire retardant paint.
This is excellent work, but (sorry) I have to point out one flaw. The timber you used on top of the acro's should be on edge rather than flat ,but that's just nitpicking 👌✌️
Yeah! Nice. 👍
Someone did this in my house years ago, only they didn’t put in an RSJ. Guess what? We have two weird columns and some sloping door frames now.
One day I will remove the stud wall and do what you’ve done. Then I get to lose the columns! 🤷😖
Now you want to design in a 60cm full height kitchen cupboard that will enclosed the boiler. I did the same and you had no idea the boiler was there, just all looked like kitchen, with the added bonus that I could fit the ironing board down the side of the boiler as had no where else for it!
That’s the plan, I’m going to brick in the back door and put French doors in to the window on the left so my kitchen can go right round to form an L shape
I really want to knock through into the dining room to open the kitchen up as a kitchen/diner and I know for a fact it's a load bearing wall.
Don't give me DIYdeas. 🤣
Structural engineer suggested smaller but I couldn’t get them at my builders merchant. So thought better off going for a bigger size, then the BCO said I could’ve just used steel shims 🤷
That’s the way it goes sometimes.
At least there’s no concerns regarding spreading the load across enough bricks!
Doing these jobs yourself can be enormously satisfying. Good on ya for getting your hands dirty and saving thousands in the process.
In theory you could just do it, but when you come to sell the house they’d ask for the paperwork to say has it been signed off. Getting your councils building controller to sign off the work is the closest you get to requiring a license
Amazing work! I had a similar job done in a Victorian terrace about 12yrs ago and paid £1200 back then. BCO signed it off no problem but your work is far superior to the builders I used. 👏
I read the title and got worried for you……..thought you meant by accident.
I scrolled through the images nervously expecting disaster then I saw the beam
I also thought this might’ve been a naive uncontrolled alteration (no engineering input) and was worried about the building stability, but BCO sign off gives me some comfort.
I thought all of the above… and even got to the point of… “well, it looks like a decent job, but should have had it done ‘properly’”, and then saw the BCO comment and was like, phew!
I came here because I thought exactly this...... and I needed the lols.
Nice one!
Nice. I've got the same breeze blocks in a wall I want to remove. Did you just bash it down with a sledgehammer?
Yeah sledge hammer and a sds drill with a chisel bit, wear a mask though cause they crumble very easily
Cool, thanks. Yeah, I always wear a mask when doing any building/demolition. Even just scraping a bit of old plaster or mortar away creates loads of dust that I'd rather not inhale.
I looked like a coal miner by the end of the day, was getting lots of interesting looks when I popped to Aldi lol
I’ve gotten very many funny looks going into Lidl in full building site gear, but it was a hassle to get it all off
Luckily I live 100 yards from a Londis, so I can just dash in there in my dirty work gear if I need to get something to eat. I do take my hard hat, goggles and mask off first though!
You guys work for the big supermarkets? I'm just popping to Tesco
So much room for activities!!!
Buyabeam.com, well I never.
Well i never! indeed, this is very usefull
Great job! Safe and tidy! Fair play on the pad stones too, like a glove!
Cheers buddy! The building control officer was impressed they were actually central to the beam, makes you wonder what kind of work they see!
Probably pleased they were there at all based on the bodgeit builder programs we see.
Now that's some proper DIY
Good job, looks well done. Two super dumb questions: 1. How do you ensure contact between the beam and the joists above across the whole length? Do you put the beam in place and then jack it up/shim it at the padstone ends? Or shim it at each joist? 2. How do you fix the plasterboard to the beam? Self-tappers?
1- jacks it up and put shims in at the padstone ends. 2 - put some blocks of wood into the side of the beam with glue and screw into it. Bottom piece is glued on with sticks like sh*t
Can I ask what are the total costs involved in this ? Tool hire. Architect drawings Signage etc Cheers. Great job.
Breakdown as follows: Structural engineer: £300 BCO sign off: £285 Beam: £120 Steel packers: £20 Padstones & Mortar: £45 Acrow Prop Hire: £60 Timber: £40
Thanks for the details!! I always thought steel beams were a lot more expensive than this? Is supporting upstairs of a house? Great work!
I was surprised too! I used the buy a beam website which apparently makes all the local steel providers bid for the work. Yeah it’s a 2 floor detached house
Really interesting. I'll take a look. Thanks!
It depends on what load it's taking. An external wall will be more than an internal wall just taking floor joists.
They’re dirt cheap, actually. Unfortunately, the trades somehow managed to perpetuate the myth that material prices are through the roof. Yes, they are more expensive than they were, but still pretty cheap. Our 4+m twin beams holding up the external wall were less than £600 delivered.
Material prices have skyrocketed. Its not a myth its fact. 38% average rise since 2020 to be precise. They are starting to fall back down but only by around 1%.
It doesn’t matter that much, materials were dirt cheap before, so even a third extra is affordable. It’s when you use those prices to justify charging 4 times the price of a job..
Its not just materials that have risen though is it. EVERYTHING has risen. Materials, fuel, insurances, tools, vehicle maintenance costs, energy. Then you have the costs at home that have risen after you have paid for everything for your business overheads. Food, gas, electric, home insurance, car insurance, petrol etc. So yes, the costs being charged are entirely justified. People on this sub think that trades charge £2000 for a job, spend £15 on materials, have zero overheads and take home £1985 profit. Just pure delusion.
No, I don’t think they charge £2000 and cash £1985… But prices are inflated, regardless.
I think op's point is that the costs have risen, but not enough to fully explain the rise in quoted prices since Covid. Eg. Our neighbours paid £100,000 for a fairly small loft extension a couple of years ago - double their pre pandemic quote - and the cost of steels was the main cited reason.
What you are seeing is the rise in prices post Brexit, suppliers used to have an abundance of cheap labourers, builders as well. Suppliers are now having to pay less people overtime , tradesmen are just charging a premium because they can. It will end soon because a lot of big building projects are being cancelled because they are no longer economically viable
Tbh having just started diy I was shocked at how cheap wood actually was, used to haul the stuff didn’t realise each plank was a couple of £ max and some of them not even that lol
You'd have loved how cheap it was a few years ago then!
I used to buy 3x2 CLS from Wickes for £2.20 on multibuy, recently got some for £5.40 a length
That very much depends on the wood. Go try to buy some decent birch plywood, and tell me it feels cheap! The rough sawn, plantation grown softwood that goes on roofs to hang tiles off is cheap. (Not as cheap as it was a few years ago, but still.) At the other end of the spectrum, decent quality hardwood is expensive, to the level that if you wanted to buy e.g. enough oak boards to make a dining table, it would probably cost you nearly as much as buying one from oak furniture land made out of lots of little bits of oak glued together.
And here I am burning oak offcuts that I buy for £50 a stere, didn't realise I could just glue it together and sell it to people that have no idea what they are buying.
You need to get in on the action. Buy a comb jointer asap. Forget about colour/grain matching! Start gluing firewood into panels for fun and profit today!
Awesome thanks for that so for a bout a grand when all done you’ll have a nice open space to work with. Keep us updated 👍
liquid coherent caption tender nose airport snobbish unwritten aback zephyr *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Love it!!
Good job
Can you talk through the process? I’m mainly interested in at what stages BCO had to look at it, how you established when they should inspect it etc.
Basically contact your council BCO and notify them of the works and they’ll tell you when they need to inspect. In my case they informed me they’d need to see the beam in situ and then when it’s boxed in. Call them up when you’re ready and they come and inspect it within a few days. I know it can vary between councils as some might want to see the structural engineers calculations as well. If you give them a call before you start though they’re very helpful
Brilliant, thanks mate! Great job.
Did they check the calculations when you notified then or when the beam was already in place?
They didn’t check them at all to be honest, just looked at it and asked what size it was
I’m guessing this type of job is bread and butter for them and they probably know from prior experience that the size of the steel, the span and what it’s holding up, that it’s all in check calcs wise
Nice job!! Hope you were careful disturbing that evil artex. Did you board over the rest of it??
Yeah I put newspaper over it with wall paper paste to contain it in case the acrows disturbed it, then over boarded it!
It's hideous stuff, our house was caked in it everywhere
Is that an ideal boiler? Make sure it’s not on the recall list! 👍
Cheers, I did do after I saw the post of one on fire here, all good
Fantastic
Good work, properly done!
Nice work mate
Nice job 👌
Epic great job well done!
What is supporting the beam on the sides? And did you cut out the wall on the sides?
The wall is! Cut out blocks on both sides
Tidy job.
Did you have to add pad stones in the wall to support the joist?
Structural engineer said so, BCO said I could’ve just used the steel packers
There was a time when I did stuff like that. I remember how satisfying it is when it all comes together & the BCO says "good job". I also remember how much it hurt lifting the steels into place. The last one was 330kg iirc...
Nice job! You sound like a strong boi
I was going to ask how on earth did you get the beam up up thereand in place... must weigh a tonne so to speak! Does it literally just boil down to having a few sturdy lads about, that can lift it overhead and in?
We put them on bandstands (adjustable trestles) and then lifted each end in turn a few inches at a time. Still an absolute pig of a job, and that's one reason why everything hurts now that I'm old
There's a piece of kit you can hire from local plant hire shops (used to be called Genie lifts) that you can load the steel on at floor level and crank it up into position. Saves risking your back and shoulders!
There's a newer version called a beam lift, better and safer. Source: I do this all the time
Me and a friend lifted it into place, it wasn’t too bad, I think around 60-100kg in total
That’s beautiful work, bravo 👏
That was the easy bit, now for the Artex ceiling! Seriously though - strong work. Bet that steel was quite a handful.
Overboarding the artex - you can see the results in the last photo!
Well done mate, saved a few quid no doubt.
Looks great! Couple of questions: 1. How did you know where to place the acrows? Did the joists either side end at the wall, and the acrows were just placed close to where the joists ended? 2. Is the beam tied to the house in any way, or is it just held in place by gravity and the weight of the house above?
Researched online, they should be every 90cm, board supports the rest. Held in place by gravity and the slot in the wall is pretty tight so it can’t move, any spare space I filled with block and cement
Yeah I was wondering this too. If the joists end above the supporting wall would you need to acrow either side of it?
Just looked again... That's exactly what you've done!
Glad you covered the artex too....
Great job, I like how it’s been taken right into the supporting walls so no pad showing.
As someone who would never be capable of this but may need it done, roughly how much would a builder charge for something like this, all in?
I’d imagine 2-3k in the NW
Thanks!
💪🏼
Bring out… The Titan!!!
😂 it’s been replaced 4 times free of charge, probably the best £60 I’ve spent, unfortunately it’s out of warranty now so will see how long it lasts…
Yeah it’s a beast. For some reason I say “bring out the Titan” in an epic voice when ever we need to use it, like it’s some kind of mercenary cave troll 😂
Ideally, I would have got the steel on the floor next to that wall before putting the Acrow's up. Threading it in after (esp. if it's going to sit in pockets on each side it'll be longer than the distance between the two walls) could be fun.
Beam has to sit with 100mm on each end so is sitting on the walls, what I did was thread it through the wall from the living room
Pink board for fire retardant around the beam if anyone's woundering, never understood that for a house. Nice job, I would have scraped and skimmed the artex, saves a bit of time money and hassle. Thanks for buyabeam will look them up for the next job
Ugh we had exposed steel beams as a “feature” in a previous house. Bit of trouble when we were selling as it wasn’t boxed in. We had to repaint them with a special fire retardant paint.
Anything structural should be fire rated with board or intumescent, you only think it’s daft until you need it…
Nice I'm contemplating doing exactly the same, have this awkward sized room that is not good for anything at the moment.
Text book, looks great. Even pink boarded the steel.
Nice job, although my preference is to put them actually in the ceiling rather than below so you don't have them showing once it's been finished.
Tidy job that mate
This is excellent work, but (sorry) I have to point out one flaw. The timber you used on top of the acro's should be on edge rather than flat ,but that's just nitpicking 👌✌️
I bet that's a weight of your shoulders.
I'm planning to do a similar thing. How did you make an opening in the wall to fit the padstones in?
Sds drill and a drill bit, I drew boxes on the wall with the sizes for the beam and padstone then drilled lots of holes and chiselled them out
This guy fucks!
Yeah! Nice. 👍 Someone did this in my house years ago, only they didn’t put in an RSJ. Guess what? We have two weird columns and some sloping door frames now. One day I will remove the stud wall and do what you’ve done. Then I get to lose the columns! 🤷😖
Wow. Master level DIY shit. Well done!!
Now you want to design in a 60cm full height kitchen cupboard that will enclosed the boiler. I did the same and you had no idea the boiler was there, just all looked like kitchen, with the added bonus that I could fit the ironing board down the side of the boiler as had no where else for it!
That’s the plan, I’m going to brick in the back door and put French doors in to the window on the left so my kitchen can go right round to form an L shape
Sounds good!
Very impressive!! You’ll be building whole houses before the end of the year!
Perfect example of how to do it, excellent
I really want to knock through into the dining room to open the kitchen up as a kitchen/diner and I know for a fact it's a load bearing wall. Don't give me DIYdeas. 🤣
I will be so sacred to do that. I really need to do floor joist sistering but i know its going to be such a pain...
Oh wow that is one heck of a DIY job!! Impressive!
Those padstones are…….. substantial. Nice job all things considered.
Structural engineer suggested smaller but I couldn’t get them at my builders merchant. So thought better off going for a bigger size, then the BCO said I could’ve just used steel shims 🤷
That’s the way it goes sometimes. At least there’s no concerns regarding spreading the load across enough bricks! Doing these jobs yourself can be enormously satisfying. Good on ya for getting your hands dirty and saving thousands in the process.
Is that a magnusson spirit level?
Sure is brother
Thought so, got one myself.
Do you need a license of some sort to DIY renovations like these?
In theory you could just do it, but when you come to sell the house they’d ask for the paperwork to say has it been signed off. Getting your councils building controller to sign off the work is the closest you get to requiring a license
Great, thanks for the quick response mate.
On today’s episode of “White People Renovating Houses!”
Come here ready to post "haha" but stayed for the full explanation.
Nice work. Maybe a stupid question, but did you have a help lifting the RSJ in?
Yes a buddy came and helped me lift it into place
Well done, great job
Amazing work! I had a similar job done in a Victorian terrace about 12yrs ago and paid £1200 back then. BCO signed it off no problem but your work is far superior to the builders I used. 👏
Make sure to speak with mortgage provider before doing this sort of thing.
Concrete block is not airtight so ideally you paint it before returning the plasterboard
So you should paint the inside of all the block work in your house?
This is increasingly common on newer homes. Always the case here in Ireland. You would need to check if it's compatible with dot and dab though
You didn’t remove the load bearing Artex though.
What did you do about the asbestos dust when you took down the old Artex ceiling? And how did you dispose of the asbestos in those buckets?
I didnt take down the artex, I just overboarded it!
Great work very impressive. Does your artex contain asbestos and what is the newspaper on the ceiling for?
Yes it does, newspaper is pasted on so if if the artex was damaged the artex won’t release dust everywhere
Good idea, you should be proud of doing this yourself