Removing a load bearing wall means transferring what it carries onto a beam, and proving that transfer to building control. We survey, appoint the structural engineer, prop, cut the opening, install the steel and its bearings, then make good and see the work through inspection. The calculations are the engineer's, always. This page covers what the fabric and the ground in Staines-upon-Thames mean for that work.
Some fabric in central Staines-upon-Thames is older than a standard survey assumes
The oldest known surviving buildings in the Staines Conservation Area are 118 High Street and 21 to 27 Church Street. The first is believed to contain some sixteenth century elements. The second is a much altered short row of buildings with seventeenth century origins. Clarence Street is lined on its northern side by a row of three storey buff coloured brick buildings. The appraisal dates almost all of that row to between 1824 and 1830.
There are almost 40 buildings within the conservation area that have been included in the Statutory List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest. If a property is listed, removing an internal wall needs listed building consent as well as building regulations approval, whatever the wall is doing structurally. We check the designation before we quote, so the consent route is settled first rather than halfway through.
What sits under the floor changes from street to street
British Geological Survey 1:50,000 mapping shows London Clay Formation, described as clay, silt and sand, as the bedrock beneath every one of 26 sample points taken across Staines-upon-Thames. The superficial deposits above it vary. The same mapping shows Alluvium, described as clay, silt, sand and gravel, at Church Street, Market Square, Clarence Street and Hale Street. It shows Kempton Park Gravel Member sand and gravel at Gresham Road, Knowle Green, Kingston Road, Worple Road and Kenilworth Gardens. It shows Langley Silt Member, the brickearth deposit described as clay and silt, at London Road, Shortwood Avenue and Stanwell New Road.
That matters at the bearings rather than along the whole wall. A beam puts the load of the storeys above onto two points, and each point carries down to whatever the original builder founded on. Where the engineer specifies a pad foundation or a new pier, we dig a trial hole at the actual bearing position and report what we find before the steel is ordered.
The stock outside the conservation area spans several building eras
The Spelthorne Design Code describes the remainder of Staines, outside the conservation area, as comprising largely of suburban dwellings from a range of eras, from typical 1930s semis through to more modern 1990s cluster style residential layouts. Census 2021 recorded 821 households in terraced houses in the Staines ward and 648 in the Staines South ward.
Era changes the answer. A 1930s semi and a 1990s house carry their floors and roofs differently, and two walls that look identical on a plan can be doing different work. We survey from the storey above and from beneath the floor where access allows, so the beam is sized for what the wall actually carries rather than for what the layout suggests.
Building control has to see the opening before it is covered
Spelthorne Building Control requires you to notify your Registered Building Inspector before progressing beyond each inspection stage, and inspections may be carried out on site or remotely via photographs or video. That notification is ours to make. We plan the propping period and the plastering around it, so the steel and its bearings are visible when the inspector looks rather than boarded over. Waiting until the room is finished is how a job ends up opened back up.
- Electrics, pipework and radiators diverted out of the wall
- Rubble bagged and cleared as the work progresses
- Steel boxed, fire protected and finished ready for decoration
- Lintel replacement where an existing opening has failed
- Party Wall Act notices where the opening reaches a shared wall
The GS Renovation Difference in Staines-upon-Thames
A wall removal is two pieces of work, a structural one and a compliance one, and we carry both. We appoint the structural engineer for the calculations and build to them, because a contractor should never be writing its own structural design. Where the property is listed or sits inside the Staines Conservation Area, the consent route is settled before the price is fixed, since that can change the method as well as the paperwork. Spelthorne Borough Council is the authority for the planning side and for building control, and we make the applications and coordinate the inspections. You get one point of contact from survey to sign off. GS Renovation Ltd is fully insured and registered in England, company number 14611254.
- Building control sign-off arranged so the opening is documented
- Free, no-obligation quotations
- Plastering, skirting and making good included in the price
- A dedicated project manager from first survey to handover
- A written scope and programme agreed before work starts
- Padstones and bearings detailed at both ends of the opening