Indy Total Construction

The way you tackle the job of making an opening in a wall or removing the wall completely in your house, depends on the type of wall it is and its construction.

A load-bearing wall contributes to the strength of the house by supporting some of its structure: a floor/ceiling, an upstairs wall or part of the roof.

A non-load-bearing wall is simply a dividing partition and its complete removal will have no effect on the rest of the house.

Inspect the floor space above it for signs that it supports the joists, or an upstairs wall. Look in the attic, too, to see if any of the roof framework rests on the wall in question.

All external walls are load-bearing and in general any wall at right-angles to the joists will be load- bearing too. Walls that run parallel to the joists are probably non-load-bearing.

Walls may be of brick, concrete blocks or be wood framed. All three types of construction are used for both load-bearing and non-load-bearing walls.

When you make an opening in a wall, no matter how narrow or wide, you must insert a supporting beam or lintel across the opening to take the load of the structure above, even if it is a non-load-bearing wall. The problem is that even by removing a narrow row of bricks or blocks to make room for the be will put the structure at risk.

For a narrow opening like a door, the bond in pattern of the bricks or blocks will tend to make the wall above the opening self-supporting (or self-corbelling) and only a small triangular section of masonry will be at risk. This can be removed, the lintel fitted and the masonry replaced.

With a very wide opening, the self supporting tendency will disappear and a wide area of the wall will be liable to collapse. To prevent this happening. you must support the wall (and sometimes the ceiling on either side) temporarily with heavy wood and adjustable props.

Openings in walls may be spanned by lengths of concrete, steel or wood. Those for fitting over small openings like doors and windows are called lintels; those for spanning wider gaps are called beams. The following are common: Steel Joist — a heavy I or L-shaped girder for spanning very wide gaps in load-bearing walls; Reinforced Concrete Lintel — for internal or solid brick external walls in spans of up to 10ft.

Heavy to lift and often cast on the job site, is the Pre-stressed Concrete Lintel — lighter than reinforced concrete lintels but not suitable for load- bearing walls, except in upper floors. For spans of up to loft, the wood lintel is used in wood framed walls.

Partitions can be used in most homes to make best use of available space, turning large or awkwardly- shaped rooms into more manageable accommodation.

The large, L-shaped room is common to many homes, yet it is not the most convenient of shapes to furnish or heat. By building a partition with an access door across one of the legs you can produce two smaller, rectangular rooms which are much cozier and more easily heated.

Long, narrow rooms also produce their own particular problems, such as giving the impression of being like tunnels or causing difficulties in positioning furniture. The tendency is to put everything around the walls, leaving a large bare area in the center of the room.

By building a partition that spans, say, only half of the room’s width, you can create two distinct areas (for living and dining perhaps) without completely losing the feeling of being in one large room.

Furniture can then be grouped more effectively into sitting arrangements and dining areas. You can achieve the same effect by building a waist-high partition across the room, but in this case there would be much more of an open-plan feel to the room. Such a partition would also provide some useful shelf space along the top, or for a tier of shelves above.

Obviously, if you are using a partition to make two rooms out of one, you will have to arrange access to the new room. The easiest way is to build a door in the partition.

However, this means that you must walk through one room to reach the other and that might not always be convenient, especially if the rooms are used as bedrooms. To overcome this problem you can either make a new doorway through one of the original walls of the room or build a second partition at right angles to the first to form a small lobby, from which both rooms can be entered separately and maintain a sense of privacy.

A bathroom formed by partitioning off part of a larger room. The confined space is visually enlarged by the overall tiling of the walls and bath platform, and light is admitted through a glass block wall.

An important point to consider when partitioning a room is the availability of daylight in both new rooms. You may find that the only suitable position for the partition means that one room has no window at all. In this situation, you can provide a fair degree of natural light by incorporating panes of glass (clear or frosted depending on the purpose of the room) along the top of the partition. You could even include a glass door.

Partitions can be very useful for creating storage. By building what is effectively a false wall across the end of a room, you can use the space between it and the original wall for inset shelving, cabinets and even walk-in closets. This can be very handy if there is a small room next to a large one, since by cutting an opening in the original dividing wall and arranging the internal divisions of the storage space partition at right angles to the first to form a small lobby, from which both rooms can be entered separately and maintain a sense of privacy.

An important point to consider when partitioning a room is the availability of daylight in both new rooms. You may find that the only suitable position for the partition means that one room has no window at all. In this situation, you can provide a fair degree of natural light by incorporating panes of glass (clear or frosted depending on the purpose of the room) along the top of the partition. You could even include a glass door.

Partitions can be very useful for creating storage. By building what is effectively a false wall across the end of a room, you can use the space between it and the original wall for inset shelving, cabinets and even walk-in closets. This can be very handy if there is a small room next to a large one, since by cutting an opening in the original dividing wall and arranging the internal divisions of the storage space carefully, you will provide a storage facility for both rooms.