An RSJ is the steel beam that carries the load once a wall is taken out. Our part is the survey, the propping, the beam and padstones, the making good, and the building control inspections that sign the work off. We appoint a structural engineer for the calculations and build to what they issue. We never produce those calculations ourselves. This page sets out what an RSJ job on a Chesham property involves, and who checks it.
Building control for a beam in Chesham goes to Buckinghamshire Council
Buckinghamshire Council runs its own building control service, and site inspections in Chesham are booked through the former Chiltern and South Bucks district area booking form. The council requires notice at least two working days before you intend to start work. It also requires a written commencement notice within five working days of the works commencing. We make the application and give both notices.
Inspections are carried out only between 10am and 3pm, Monday to Friday, excluding public holidays, and the council asks for bookings the day before. That window shapes the programme for a beam. The propping, the bearings and the steel each need to be seen at the right stage, so the visits are booked around the steel going in rather than after it.
What a beam bears on depends on how the wall was built
Bearings are the part of an RSJ job that the survey has to settle, because the wall takes the beam's whole load at two points. The Chesham Design Code states that natural stone is very rarely used locally, because the chalk bedrock provides little building stone, and it names flint used with brick quoining as the exception. Flint and brick do not behave the same way under a concentrated load.
The same code requires brickwork for quoins, piers, lintels and surrounds on new flint faced houses, and lime mortars for the flintwork itself. That is a fair guide to what an opening in flintwork asks for: brick to take the concentrated load, and a mortar that stays softer than the material around it. We open up before any steel is ordered, and the engineer designs each bearing from what is found there.
Semi-detached houses are the largest accommodation type in the town
Semi-detached houses are the largest accommodation type in Chesham, at 2,964 of the 9,395 households counted at the 2021 census. A semi shares a party wall, so a beam bearing near that wall raises a party wall question alongside the structural one. We are not party wall surveyors, so we flag it at survey rather than advise on it. Raising it early means any notice period sits inside the programme instead of stopping it.
- Beam boxing, fire protection and plasterboard encasement
- Concrete and high-density padstones at every bearing
- Steel delivered cut, drilled and primed to the engineer's schedule
- Existing pipework and cabling diverted around the new opening
- Goalpost frames where two walls meet at a corner
Why Chesham Homeowners Choose GS Renovation
We are a contractor, not an engineering practice. For a Chesham beam we appoint the structural engineer, build to the calculations they issue, and hold the propping until the steel is bearing correctly. The building control application goes to Buckinghamshire Council's own service, and we give the two working day notice and the written commencement notice ourselves. Inspections run between 10am and 3pm on weekdays, so the beam programme is built around that window rather than against it. You get one point of contact for the engineer, the steel, the brickwork and the sign off. GS Renovation Ltd is fully insured, registered in England, company number 14611254, and quotations are free and without obligation.
- Site left safe and secure at the end of every day
- Building control inspected at the propping and beam stages
- Free, no-obligation quotations
- Restricted London access planned before the steel arrives
- A dedicated project manager from first survey to handover
- Materials priced at options, so you choose the finish