An open plan conversion is several jobs in one: a wall or two removed, a beam sized and installed, the floor and ceiling made continuous, and the services rearranged to suit the new room. The structure comes first and everything else follows it. We appoint the structural engineer, build to the calculations issued, and coordinate the building control side. This page covers what that means for a Windsor property.
The steel has to be inspected before it disappears into the ceiling
The Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead lists a specific building control inspection stage for steel beams and columns before they are encased, with one day's notice required to book it. On an open plan job the beam goes in early and the finishes that hide it follow quickly. If that inspection is missed, the covering has to come back off. We programme the boarding, the plastering and the ceiling work around the visit rather than the other way round.
What sits under the floor decides where the new beam can bear
Opening two rooms into one moves load onto new bearing points, and those points carry down through whatever is below them. The council's Inner Windsor appraisal describes dwellings along the area's major streets, such as Clarence Road, Frances Road and Kings Road, as three storeys high with cellars. Grove Road is described as a long terraced row of small dwellings built up to the pavement, with small basements and modest rear yards and gardens.
A basement under a new bearing is not a problem in itself, but it is a fact the engineer needs before sizing anything. It affects the floor as well. Making a ground floor continuous across a removed wall means matching levels and, where there is a void below, dealing with ventilation and support at the same time. We open up at the bearing positions first and report what is actually there.
In a cottage built as one of 96, the plan repeats and so do the walls
Gardner Cottages is a square of 96 two storey workers cottages built in 1870, fronting Albert Road, Vansittart Road and the L-shaped Duke Street around a large central green. The cottages are built of London stock brick with red brick string courses and front door lintels, and decorative brick panels on the larger cottages. In a small cottage plan the wall between the two ground floor rooms is doing more than dividing them, and it has to be replaced with something that does the same job. The engineer sizes the beam and specifies the bearings, and we build to that.
- Kitchen island services routed through the new floor
- Ventilation and extraction planned for an open kitchen
- Rooflights and glazed roofs to bring light deep into the plan
- Zoned lighting circuits and dimming for a multi-use room
- Making good, plastering and decorating the finished space
Trusted Open-Plan Conversions in Windsor
An open plan conversion is a sequencing job as much as a structural one. The beam, the bearings, the floor, the services and the finishes have to happen in an order that does not get undone. We appoint the structural engineer, build to the calculations issued, and never write calculations ourselves. We coordinate the building control application and book the inspection on the steel before anything is encased, so the ceiling goes up once. One point of contact runs the demolition, the steel, the making good and the trades that follow. Quotations are free and without obligation, and GS Renovation Ltd is fully insured and rated 4.9 from 31 reviews on MyBuilder.
- Free, no-obligation quotations
- Aftercare and snagging support once the job is finished
- The house kept usable while the opening is formed in stages
- Fully insured, with cover in place on every site
- Lighting circuits zoned rather than one pendant in the middle
- Heat loss and acoustics considered before the wall comes out