An RSJ is the steel beam that carries the load once a wall or part of a wall is taken out. Our part is the survey, the propping, the beam, the padstones, the making good and the building control inspections. 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 an RSJ job on a Staines-upon-Thames property involves, and who checks it.
Spelthorne runs its own building control, and it inspects beams before boarding
Spelthorne Borough Council runs its own building control service, Spelthorne Building Control, and applies a risk based framework to the inspection of projects. That framework includes a stage called before plaster boarding, defined as including structural beams and bearings and fire resistance. For loft conversions, garage conversions and domestic alterations this stage is always inspected. For extensions to dwellings it must be notified, and the council then decides whether an inspection is required.
You are required to notify your Registered Building Inspector before progressing beyond each inspection stage, and inspections may be carried out on site or remotely via photographs or video. The council also asks for dated, geotagged photographic evidence of all key construction stages, with a full record retained for completion. We make that notification, keep the beam and its bearings open until the stage is cleared, and build the photographic record as the work goes in.
The superficial deposit under a long run of Staines streets is Shepperton Gravel
British Geological Survey 1:50,000 mapping shows Shepperton Gravel Member sand and gravel as the superficial deposit at a long list of streets here. They include High Street, Thames Street, Laleham Road, Commercial Road, Moor Lane and Vicarage Road. They also include Edgell Road, Elmsleigh Road, Fairfield Avenue, Penton Road, Wyatt Road, Riverside Drive and Wheatsheaf Lane.
A steel beam concentrates everything above it onto two small bearing points, and each point has to carry down to something able to take it. Where the engineer calls for a padstone, a new pier or a pad foundation, what sits beneath it is a question to settle before the steel is ordered. We open up at the bearing positions, record what is there, and pass it to the engineer before anything is cut.
Semi-detached houses are the largest recorded accommodation type in the Staines South ward
Census 2021 recorded 1,554 of the 2,909 households in the Staines South ward living in semi-detached houses. The Spelthorne Design Code defines the borough's Suburban area type as the post war suburban areas typically laid out in the period 1945 to 1970. The code characterises that area type as lower density housing on a street grid.
A semi shares a party wall, so beam sizing and propping have to account for the neighbour's side as well as your own floors above. We set the props, take the load, cut the opening and land the steel on the padstones the engineer has specified. Where a shared wall is involved, the Party Wall etc. Act may apply, and a party wall surveyor deals with that rather than us. We are a contractor, so we build to the engineer's calculations and coordinate the inspections.
- Load-bearing wall removal and knock-throughs
- Access and lifting plans for restricted London sites
- Bearing checks into party walls and shared masonry
- Steel columns, base plates and bolted connections
- Steel delivered cut, drilled and primed to the engineer's schedule
Why Staines-upon-Thames Homeowners Choose GS Renovation
We are a contractor, not an engineering practice. For a beam in Staines-upon-Thames we appoint the structural engineer, build to the calculations issued, and hold the propping until the steel is in and bearing correctly. Spelthorne Borough Council runs its own building control, so the stage notifications and the beams and bearings inspection go to the council's own team, and we book them around our programme rather than after the fact. That gives you 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 rated 4.9 from 31 reviews on MyBuilder. Quotations are free and without obligation.
- Fully insured, with cover in place on every site
- Site left safe and secure at the end of every day
- Levels and deflection checked before the props come out
- Itemised pricing, so you can see what every stage costs
- Waste cleared as we go, not left piled in the garden
- Building control inspected at the propping and beam stages