Remove Load Bearing Wall

With the pillar built and the well capped off it was time to think about the messy job of taking out the wall. I decided to get some help with this aspect of the job as I knew that doing it alone would be slow, and I didn't want my house supported on props for longer than necessary. I agreed with a local builder that I would remove the downstairs chimney breast, wiring and plumbing so that he could come in for a day and do the final removal of supporting brick and insert the specified UC (aka RSJ).

I made some moulds and cast my own padstones to the size specified by the structural engineer.

I took down the chimney breast to keep costs down. A friendly builder then started knocking out bricks and inserting props with strong boys.

I had specified that I wanted the UC to be hidden within the floor void so that no lump would be noticeable in the finished ceiling. I also requested that no buttress be visible where the UC loads the front and rear walls. This made fitting the UC a bit more complicated but it would mean that, when finished, there would be no evidence that a UC was in place.

Because the UC sat in between two existing floor joists, the only way to get it in place was to make a hole in the rear wall of the house and feed it through. A 38Kg UC was seriously heavy and it took five of us to manhandle it into position.