An RSJ is the steel beam that carries the load when a wall comes out. Our part is the survey, the propping, the beam, the padstones, the making good and the inspections that sign the work off. We appoint a structural engineer for the calculations and build to what they issue. We never write those calculations ourselves. This page sets out what a beam job in Bishop's Stortford involves, and who checks it.
Building control for a beam in Bishop's Stortford is handled by Hertfordshire Building Control
East Herts District Council does not run its own building control service. It is delivered by Hertfordshire Building Control Limited, a company owned by East Herts together with seven other Hertfordshire local authorities. The notice for your beam therefore does not go to the council's own offices.
Hertfordshire Building Control has 48 surveyors, 36 of them professionally qualified, and its operations team takes calls on 01438 879990. We make the application and book the inspections around our own programme. The propping, the bearings and the beam are each seen at the right stage, rather than after the plaster has gone back on.
A three storey terrace changes how the steel is propped and carried in
It changes it because there is more wall and more floor sitting above the opening. The conservation area appraisal picks out the larger three storey terraces on Portland Road, and the tightly knit Sidney Terrace, complete with street lighting fixed to the buildings.
Street lighting fixed to a building, and a tight frontage, are practical facts before they are heritage ones. They set where a lorry can stop, how a beam is carried in, and where the props can stand. The appraisal describes the Windhill houses at nos. 24 to 26, no. 16 and nos. 50 to 56 as 19th century yellow stock brick with slate roofs. Age of fabric is a clue, not an answer, so we open up and record what the bearing actually sits in and pass that to the engineer.
What a beam bearing carries down into depends on the ground under that address
Under Windhill, Hockerill, Thorley Park and St Michael's Mead, British Geological Survey mapping puts the bedrock in the Thanet Formation and Lambeth Group, undifferentiated, rather than in the Chalk. The survey describes that unit as clay, sand and silt with subsidiary flint, mudstone and sandstone.
A steel beam gathers the load of everything above it onto two small points. Where the engineer calls for a new pier or a pad foundation, what sits beneath it has to be established before the steel is ordered. We dig the trial hole at the actual bearing position, record what is found and send it to the engineer for the design.
- Making good, plastering and finishing around the new steel
- Structural openings for open-plan living
- Level, plumb and deflection checks before props are struck
- Beam boxing, fire protection and plasterboard encasement
- Party Wall Act 1996 notices and awards handled
The GS Renovation Difference in Bishop's Stortford
We are a contractor, not an engineering practice. For a beam in Bishop's Stortford we appoint the structural engineer, build to the calculations issued, and hold the temporary support until the steel is in and bearing correctly. The building control application goes to Hertfordshire Building Control rather than to East Herts District Council, and we make it and book the inspections around our own programme. That gives you one point of contact for the engineer, the steel, the brickwork and the sign off. GS Renovation Ltd is fully insured and registered in England, company number 14611254. Quotations are free and carry no obligation.
- Levels and deflection checked before the props come out
- Straight advice on what is and is not worth spending money on
- Aftercare and snagging support once the job is finished
- Temporary propping in place before anything is cut
- Waste cleared as we go, not left piled in the garden
- Restricted London access planned before the steel arrives