Wall Removal and Knock Throughs in Flitwick
The knock through on a modern Flitwick house: predictable structure, a two to three day job, and a ground floor transformed.
Flitwick’s houses are mostly sixties to nineties, cavity walled, with blockwork internal walls and concrete ground floors, and that makes structural alterations about as predictable as they get. The wall between the kitchen and the dining room comes out on a steel, the garage opening is widened into the hall, the lounge and the dining room become one. Each is a two to three day structural job with an engineer’s design and a Central Bedfordshire building control inspection.
These jobs are nearly always the first stage of something bigger, a new kitchen, a garage conversion, a full refit, and we run them as one programme so the steel goes in before the plasterer, the electrician and the kitchen fitter rather than in the middle of them. The photographs on this page are our own: the props and strongboys, the steel on its padstones, the opening framed and ready for plaster.
Trussed roofs, blockwork and the garage wall
On a house of this age the ground floor walls carry the first floor joists and sometimes a truss bearing wall load from the roof, so the engineer looks at the whole load path. The blockwork takes a padstone well, the concrete floor usually needs no work under a new pier, and the ceiling can normally be kept flush by setting the beam into the joist zone. The one warning is the roof: trussed rafters cannot be cut or altered for a loft room without a full redesign, and a wall that carries a truss bearing needs the steel sized for it.
The garage wall is the other regular. Opening an integral garage into the hall or the kitchen as part of a conversion means a steel across the opening and a proper floor build up in the garage. Internal structural work needs no planning application on a Flitwick house but always needs Building Regulations approval, and the newer estates sometimes have conditions worth checking if external changes are part of the job. General local guidance, confirmed for the particular property.
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Structural alterations we have built
Our own photographs, some mid build, because that is where you can see how a job was put together. More on the projects page.
Typical works can include
Every project in Flitwick is different. Depending on the agreed scope, works may include:
- Structural engineer calculations, where required and where included within the agreed scope
- Temporary works, acrow props and strongboys
- Opening formed and masonry cut back
- Padstones or spreader plates bedded to specification
- Steel beam installed, levelled and packed
- Fire protection to the steel and boxing in
The full list, and how we run the job, is on the main structural alterations page.
I can very happily recommend CB Builders and Sons having had work completed today by them. Turned up on time, tidied up well after themselves. Did a multi task interior job very professionally, and didn’t over charge. Wood work, electric, plaster, all to a high standard. Also, being a lone female I can say I felt safe and totally comfortable having them in my home. I would 100% hire them again. Thank you.
Questions from Flitwick
How long does a kitchen wall removal take in Flitwick?
Two to three days on site for the structural work, then a week or so for fire protection, boxing in and plastering, and a drying period before decoration. From first visit to finished opening, allowing for the engineer’s design and the Building Regulations application, is typically three to five weeks.
Can you make the kitchen and the garage one room?
Yes, and it is a good use of an integral garage. A steel takes the load across the widened opening, the garage floor is built up, insulated and levelled to match the kitchen, and the front opening is built up with a window to match the house. It needs Building Regulations approval throughout and is usually done as one job with the kitchen refit.
What is the difference between planning permission and Building Regulations?
Planning is about whether you are allowed to build the thing at all: size, appearance, effect on neighbours. Building Regulations are about whether it is safe and properly built: structure, insulation, fire, drainage, ventilation, electrics.
They are separate approvals. An extension can need no planning permission whatsoever and still require Building Control approval. For structural work we generally prefer the Full Plans route, so drawings and calculations are checked before we start rather than problems surfacing halfway through.
We work alongside Building Control and structural engineers regularly and can manage that liaison where it forms part of the agreed scope. Their fees and appointments are not automatically included unless the quotation says so.
How long will the work take?
It depends on the job, and anyone who gives you a number without seeing the house is guessing. As a rough guide: a bathroom is two to three weeks, a kitchen refit two to four, a single storey rear extension is usually ten to fourteen weeks from breaking ground, and a full house renovation runs three to six months depending on scale.
Weather, Building Control inspections and lead times on windows, doors and kitchens all move those numbers. We build realistic float into the programme rather than promising a date we cannot hold.
Other work we do in Flitwick
Structural alterations nearby
Also covering Westoning Maulden Steppingley Pulloxhill Greenfield Marston Moretaine
Planning structural alterations in Flitwick?
Send a few photographs and tell us what you have in mind. We will come and look, and the written quotation costs nothing.