GS Renovation opens up ground floors in Hemel Hempstead, taking out the walls between kitchen, dining and living space and carrying the load on steel. The house decides the method, and Hemel Hempstead holds two very different kinds of house. We appoint the engineer, build to the design, and finish the room rather than handing it over as a shell.
Which New Town neighbourhood the house came from
It changes what you find behind the plaster. Hemel Hempstead officially became a New Town on 4 February 1947. The first new residents moved into Adeyfield in February 1950, the first four families on 8 February 1950. By autumn 1952, 300 houses at Bennetts End were occupied. Grovehill began construction in 1967 and was completed in stages by the early 1980s, and Woodhall Farm was built in the mid to late 1970s, on the former Brock's fireworks site.
Thirty years separate the earliest of those neighbourhoods from the latest, and construction changed a great deal over that period. Floor construction, wall build-ups and roof structure in a 1950 house are not those of a 1975 house. We survey the actual building rather than working from the address, and the engineer's design follows what is found once the ceiling and floor are opened.
Opening up on the Old Town High Street
There the structure is older and less predictable. The character statement records that the local vernacular is hidden behind plaster, render or brick, with earlier timber framed buildings refronted or partially rebuilt. It also records that exposed timber framing is rare, frames having been modernised with the addition of 18th or 19th century brick skins. Opening a wall there can expose a historic frame rather than the masonry a drawing assumed.
Plan form matters as well. The character statement identifies the historic grain of plot division, with small buildings running down the plot rather than across it, as a very important part of the Old Town's character. It describes rear extensions to High Street buildings as tall narrow gables projecting perpendicular to the building line. An open plan layout in a footprint like that is a long narrow space, and the steel arrangement has to suit it.
Permitted development limits inside the conservation area
Two limits catch open plan projects that also extend. In the Hemel Hempstead conservation area, planning permission is required for any extension that would extend beyond a wall forming a side elevation of the original house. Permission is also required for an extension of more than one storey that would extend beyond the rear wall of the original house. If your knock through is paired with a side return or a two storey rear addition, that is a planning application before it is a structural job.
Purely internal work is a different matter, dealt with under Building Regulations. We separate the two at survey, so you know which consents apply and in what order. Where an application is needed, the structural design is prepared to suit the scheme that gets permission, rather than the other way round.
- Beam depth checked against existing ceiling heights
- Zoned lighting circuits and dimming for a multi-use room
- Bi-fold and sliding door openings onto the garden
- Flush beam detailing where a downstand would look wrong
- Side-return integration for a wider ground floor
Trusted Open-Plan Conversions in Hemel Hempstead
An open plan ground floor is several jobs in one order, and GS Renovation carries all of them: the engineer we appoint, the steel, the flooring, the ceilings, the electrics and lighting, the kitchen fit and the decoration. That means the people who opened the room are the people who level, square and finish it, so there is no gap where one trade blames another. We are fully insured, registered in England under company number 14611254, and rated 4.9 from 31 reviews on MyBuilder.
- Free follow-up visit after completion if anything needs attention
- The house kept usable while the opening is formed in stages
- Straight advice on what is and is not worth spending money on
- Structure and finishes delivered by one team on one programme
- Materials priced at options, so you choose the finish
- A written scope and programme agreed before work starts