Structural Alterations and RSJs in Woburn Sands
Opening up Edwardian villas and modern family houses on the ridge, with the steel to do it properly.
Five star
Google reviews
£5m
Public liability
10+
Years’ trade experience
Family run
Milton Keynes based
The big houses along the Woburn Sands and Aspley Heath ridge were built as a series of separate rooms, and most of the structural work we do there is joining them together: the two reception rooms made one, the kitchen opened into the dining room, the back of the house opened to the garden. Each of those walls is load bearing, each gets a steel designed by the engineer, and each is inspected by Building Control.
On the newer housing around the town the request is usually simpler, the wall between the kitchen and the dining room out to make a kitchen diner, and the job is a two or three day structural operation at the front of a bigger refit. We have done this in Aspley Guise as part of a rear extension and garage conversion for Patricia, whose review is on our reviews page, and it is a regular job for us throughout the area.
Typical works can include
Every project in Woburn Sands 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.
Villas, chimneys and long spans
Edwardian villas have long spans and heavy loads. Opening the full width between two reception rooms can mean a steel of five or six metres carrying a floor, a partition and sometimes a chimney breast above, so the beam is substantial, the padstones are big and the piers at each end get checked down to the foundation. It is well within what we do, and it is precisely why the engineer’s design is not optional. Where a chimney breast is being removed as well, the stack above is supported on its own steel or gallows brackets rather than left hanging.
The ground on the ridge is sand over clay and generally stable, which helps. Woburn Sands is Milton Keynes City Council; Aspley Guise and Aspley Heath are Central Bedfordshire, and Building Control follows the same split. Internal structural work on an unlisted house needs no planning application; on a listed villa it can need listed building consent. General local guidance, confirmed for your property.
Very professional and impeccable work standards! Will definitely be using them again!
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.
Questions from Woburn Sands
Can you remove a chimney breast in a Woburn Sands villa?
Yes. The part in the room comes out and the stack above is supported on a steel or on gallows brackets to the engineer’s design, inspected by Building Control. On a semi detached villa the chimney is often shared, which brings in the Party Wall etc. Act and a conversation with the neighbour before anything starts.
Will I get a flush ceiling or a downstand where the wall was?
Flush, wherever the floor structure allows it. The steel is set up into the floor zone between the joists rather than below them, so once it is boxed in and plastered the ceiling runs straight through. On some older houses the joist depth makes that impossible without more work, and we say so before you decide.
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 Woburn Sands
Structural alterations nearby
Also covering Aspley Guise Aspley Heath Woburn Ridgmont Eversholt Wavendon Bow Brickhill
Planning structural alterations in Woburn Sands?
Send a few photographs and tell us what you have in mind. We will come and look, and the written quotation costs nothing.