A steel beam is easy to specify and awkward to install. GS Renovation has been getting them into North London houses for over 30 years, and in Oakwood that means working out how a five metre beam reaches the middle of a 1930s house before we agree a price. Everything after that is propping, bearing and fire protection.
Getting the steel into a 1930s Oakwood house
A 203 by 133 universal beam weighs roughly 25 kilos a metre, so a five metre length is a serious lift for four people down a narrow hall with a right angle turn at the front door. The wide frontages here help, because the lorry usually gets close and the beam crosses your own drive rather than the pavement. Where access genuinely will not allow it, the engineer can often design the opening around two shorter sections spliced together, or a flitch beam bolted up in position from steel plate and timber.
That decision belongs at design stage, not on the morning of the lift. We measure the route in: the hall width, the turn, the door opening, and often the side gate and garden path that these plots almost always have. Then we tell the engineer what is realistic. A beam that cannot be carried in is not a clever beam. Where a garden route exists we frequently bring steel in through the back of the house, which keeps the hallway cleaner and leaves the front of the property usable throughout.
Bearings, padstones and fire protection in N14
Beams fail at the ends, not in the middle. Each bearing needs the length the engineer specifies, commonly 100mm or 150mm, onto a padstone that spreads the point load into masonry which is genuinely sound rather than the soft yellow stock you sometimes find under a 1930s window opening. We bed the padstone on a full mortar bed, then dry pack the gap above the beam so load transfers straight away instead of after the wall has settled onto it and cracked a ceiling first.
Then the steel is protected. Approved Document B expects structural steel in a house to keep standing for a set period in a fire, and in domestic work that is normally achieved with plasterboard encasement rather than any exotic coating, so the beam is boarded properly rather than skimmed straight onto. Enfield building control inspects the beam, the padstones and the bearings before that boarding goes up. Book the visit late and you are pulling ceilings back down to show an inspector what you already covered.
- Ceiling and floor levels resolved where the beam sits below joists
- Making good, plastering and finishing around the new steel
- Load-bearing wall removal and knock-throughs
- Flitch beams where a slimmer steel and timber solution suits
- Party Wall Act 1996 notices and awards handled
Trusted RSJ and Steel Beam Installation in Oakwood
We treat a beam as a sequence rather than a product: access checked before design, propping in before demolition, padstones bedded, dry packing driven home, boarding for fire resistance, inspection booked while everything is still visible. One team does all of it, so nobody is waiting on a fabricator, an engineer and a plasterer to agree with each other. 30+ years of hands on experience across North London.
- Party Wall Act notices served where a beam bears into a shared wall
- A dedicated project manager from first survey to handover
- Temporary propping in place before anything is cut
- Honest updates if a date or a detail has to move
- Steel sized to the engineer's design, never guessed on site
- Dust screens and floor protection in occupied homes