Building Works Help

[Petey83]

so my second HELP question in the last 24 hrs to do with my soon to be new house.

We want to open up the living room through to the extension thats already there so a bit of demo work and a steel fitted as well as brick up a side door and have a number of walls skimmed after we take tiles off or to cover the 70's style textured plaster thats on some of the walls. I know i need n engineer and have already engaged a local one to come and have a look next weekend when the agent is arranging access for us.

Now my questions is (and i now no builder will give a solid estimate without seeing a job) but how much should we be looking to pay for that? And secondly if any of you folk on here work in the Hertfordshire / Enfield area(Goffs Oak is where the house is) and are interested in doing the work please let me know.

sorry if this is the wrong place for the thread but after the helpful responses on my kitchen question i thought it was worth asking.

 

[RobinBHM]

How big an opening are you requiring?

That has a big impact on price, as a small opening can often be done with an off the shelf steel lintel. A large opening holding up a cavity wall may need two steels bolted together. A rough size would really help to get a useful budget cost.

Is there a cavity tray above where the extension abuts the house? -not always vital, but your new steel lintel will block off the cavity so any water getting in, is going to exit at the lintel.

 

[Petey83]

How big an opening are you requiring?

That has a big impact on price, as a small opening can often be done with an off the shelf steel lintel. A large opening holding up a cavity wall may need two steels bolted together. A rough size would really help to get a useful budget cost.

Is there a cavity tray above where the extension abuts the house? -not always vital, but your new steel lintel will block off the cavity so any water getting in, is going to exit at the lintel.

width is 5.23 meters according to estate agent details sheet. It is already partially open as they have one large arch and then a taky stone clad column and then a smaller arch way door. my suspicion is the column is there supporting 2 separate steels so removing it will require 2 steels to be bolted together.

i can't comment on the cavity tray as thats above and beyond my building knowledge. I do know that the house had a survey done buy another buy a few months back and there were no major issues found - he had to pull out due to mortgage / finances problems.

small and not very good image here - https://www.dropbox.com/s/few8k7dvee7re ... m.jpg?dl=0

 

[RobinBHM]

I wonder if there was originally a single door and a large window with brickwork in between, so making for a cheap conversion without fitting new lintels.

Id be guessing at £2,500 -£3,000 Costs will include, steels, genie lift, acrows, demolition, pad stones, making good, replastering, skips, site labour. admin -structual calcs and building control application.

I assume you dont mind the steels being below the ceiling joists, flush steels are a more costly option, if actually possible.

Hopefully the house foundation will be sufficient, as a big opening creates a large load on the foundation at each end.

 

[sunnybob]

Just to really make your day, 60's and 70's artex contained asbestos. I know, I used to be one the blokes that applied it. If you get a builder to remove it you will have a huge bill.
If you do it yourself, DONT TELL anybody. If scraping or sanding, keep the surface damp using a spray mister, use masks, vacuum everything afterwards, and then throw your clothes in the washing machine and take a long shower.

Of course, I am NOT recommending this.

 

[Petey83]

I have already sorted a structural engineer to do the survey and design the steel (£300) so that can come off the costs and we may already have a skip in place as am ripping out fitted wardrobes, carpets and vinyl paneling on the walls.

so it seems our budget of £5k to do this work plus brick up a side door and skim the kitchen walls after we pull the tiles off should be adequate

and yea i was worried about asbestos in the artex - is it possible to just skim over it?

 

[sunnybob]

To be honest, and I am still NOT advising you to do this you understand, its not as much of a health risk as many people think. As it is its quite safe, but its still there, so you will always be aware of it, and it might get disturbed at a later date when youve forgotten about it. If you sell in the future and make a declaration on it, you will be liable for full removal costs.
If a decision is taken to remove it, the danger is only in breathing in the fine dust. A lump of it could be handled safely, provided the hands were well washed afterwards. If its kept damp and chipped off, a normal FFP3 mask would be all I would wear along with a paper coverall suit, obviously they would be one time use, and wet thouroughly after taking them off. But I would be very careful about sweeping the dust and disposing of it.
Sanding would be the most dangerous option.
But its all about luck. When I was an apprentice in the 60's, fitting bathroom gas boilers, we hacksawed asbestos flue pipes in closed in bathrooms and swept the dust up with the house owners dustpan and brush. We used asbestos rope and asbestos putty to seal the flue joints. I'm 67 now, and show no signs of any contamination from those years.
Others have not been so lucky, so you alone can make the decisions.

 

[Terry - Somerset]

As I understand it artex contained asbestos in the 1960s and 1970s. Asbestos use in textured coatings declined from mid-1980s. It represents no danger if stable and painted. It the coating was applied in the 1980s onwards it may contain no asbestos anyway (you could have it tested).

Unless you like the idea of high bills or lots of work, I would simple skim over it.

 

[Petey83]

we have been looking at the pictures of the house again and although they are not the best we are wondering if we mistook it for artex and its actually textured wall paper as in the pics on one of the walls you can clearly see the pattern is perfectly symmetrical and although the wall i was most concerned about cannot be clearly seen my other half also remembers it being lines with symmetry so fingers crossed thats ok as the cellings were all flat from memory with the exception of the bathroom maybe.

 

[sunnybob]

lets hope its paper. But artex can be made into some very good patterns, so check well. If its only the bathroom ceiling that is artex, then a good paint covering will seal it.

 

[ComfortablyNumb]

The asbestos used in artex is white type, not the nasty stuff (blue and brown) . You can skim over it and it will be fine as you are not disturbing it. Do not try and sand it or knock the ridges of thinking you'll get rid of the dust because you won't and having seen someone die of mesothelioma I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy