RSJ and Steel Beam Installation Golders Green

GS Renovation installs RSJs and steel beams throughout Golders Green, where the Edwardian and interwar houses of NW11 were built with solid load-bearing walls. We remove internal walls and chimney breasts safely, installing every beam to a structural engineer's calculations.

In Golders Green, a steel beam for one opening typically costs £1,500 to £4,000 fitted and signed off, or £2,500 to £6,500 or more for a full knock-through with the engineer's fee and making good (indicative London ranges, MyBuilder and Checkatrade, 2026). GS Renovation Ltd, a building contractor based in Potters Bar, does the work in Golders Green.

How the job runs

1. Free site survey at your Golders Green address and an itemised quote.
2. The engineer we appoint sizes the beam, and the work is registered with Barnet Council building control or an approved inspector. On a shared wall you serve the party wall notice as building owner; we supply the drawings.
3. Props go in, the opening is cut and the beam is set on padstones, packed tight above.
4. Building control inspects the steel before it is covered. We make good, and the completion certificate follows.

Removing load-bearing walls in Golders Green

Most NW11 houses have a solid brick wall between the front and rear reception rooms, and another between the kitchen and the closet wing at the back. Opening these up for a through lounge or a kitchen-diner means transferring the load above onto a steel beam. The structural engineer we appoint calculates the size, and we cast concrete padstones so the beam bears safely onto the surrounding brickwork.

Before any brickwork comes down we install temporary props, Acrow props on needle beams, to carry the structure while we work. Demolition is staged and controlled, never rushed, so the floors above stay supported at every moment. Once the RSJ is seated and packed, we remove the props, fireproof the steel, and arrange for Barnet Council's building control to inspect and sign off the completed structural work.

Housing in Golders Green

Count the homes in Golders Green and you get about 7,590: 27% built since 1945, 26% between the wars and 47% before 1919, with flats at 56% and houses at 44%. A beam in a leasehold flat in Golders Green needs the freeholder's licence for alterations, since the lease usually keeps the structure with the freeholder, which matters here because most homes are flats.

Seating a Golders Green beam on Edwardian solid brick

47% of Golders Green homes were built before 1919, and walls of that age are normally solid brick laid in lime mortar, with no cavity. Lime is soft by design, so a padstone set straight onto it can squeeze the joints below and let the beam settle a few millimetres once the props come out. The structural engineer we appoint deals with this by spreading the load over a longer padstone, or by rebuilding the courses under each bearing in engineering brick with a stronger mortar, toothed into the old work. We break out a small patch of plaster and brick at each end during the survey so the brick and mortar can be seen before the design is fixed.

The floor above the beam may not be the one the builder left. 56% of Golders Green homes are flats, and a house divided into flats can have a thickened separating floor, a new ceiling hung below the old one, or steel of its own from the conversion. Before the new beam is sized, find out what the conversion changed. Barnet Council building control may hold the approved drawings for the conversion at your address, and the freeholder may keep a structural file. If neither exists, we open the ceiling at the bearing positions, so the engineer designs against what is really there.

Party wall matters on Golders Green semis and terraces

Because Golders Green semis and terraces share their dividing walls with the house next door, cutting a beam pocket into that party wall brings the Party Wall etc. Act 1996 into play. You must serve notice on the neighbouring owner before work begins, usually two months for a party structure notice. We flag this early so the paperwork runs alongside the structural design rather than holding up the build.

Chimney breasts are the other common job in these homes. Removing a breast in a reception room or bedroom takes weight off the stack above, which then needs supporting on a steel beam, or on gallows brackets where the engineer and building control accept them. Where that stack is shared with the neighbour, the Party Wall Act applies again and you serve notice. We coordinate the engineer's calculations, the props, the steelwork and the building control inspections as one coordinated package.

Beams under a converted loft

If your NW11 house already has a loft conversion, that changes the sums downstairs. A converted loft adds a floor of live load, new steels bearing somewhere, and often a dormer, and much of that weight ends up travelling down the same spine wall you are asking us to remove. A beam sized on the assumption of an empty roof space would be undersized in that situation, which is why we ask before we measure.

So the engineer is told what is above before anything is calculated. We open up to find where the loft steels land, check whether they bear on the wall in question or on the flank, and pass that on. It occasionally means the new beam is heavier than a neighbour's on an apparently identical house. That is not caution for its own sake; it is the correct answer for your building rather than for the street, and building control will expect the same.

• Bearing checks into party walls and shared masonry
• Structural openings for open-plan living
• Flitch beams where a slimmer steel and timber solution suits

VOA Council Tax stock of properties, March 2025, for Golders Green North and Golders Green South. Counts rounded by the VOA.

If this is your first project in Golders Green, these are worth a look: home renovation in Golders Green, RSJ and steel beam installation across Barnet, builders in Barnet, the Party Wall Act when a beam bears on a shared wall, our London RSJ and steel beam installation page and Cracks in Walls: When to Worry.

Trusted RSJ and Steel Beam Installation in Golders Green

Golders Green homeowners choose GS Renovation because we treat structural work as the serious job it is. Every RSJ is sized by a qualified structural engineer, propped and staged properly, and signed off by Barnet Council building control. With our founder's 30+ years on the tools, we coordinate around the party wall award and deliver a safe, inspected result.

Checked by Abdelaaziz Saaid, founder and director of GS Renovation Ltd (Companies House no. 14611254). Structural design is by the consulting engineer appointed to your project.