On 05/04/2013 14:51, imanc wrote:

Hey folks,

In my new (old) victorian terrace, there's a fairly useless room at the
back that is only accessible via an external door in the back garden.
It's too small to use as a work shop, but it'd make an ideal place to
house the washer,dryer and combi boiler, if I open a door way from the
kitchen into it.

The dividing wall is solid, but there's no solid wall above, and the
joists run parallel with the wall. I assume it's single skin wall, but I
can drill through a small piece of mortar to get the depth.

The flooring in the room is screwed - and will need relaying, and the
walls are bare brick, so they'll need to be plasterboarded out, as well
as the ceiling. There are no services in the way of the proposed door
way.

So i have a few questions re's how to go about this:

1) Should I assume the wall is load bearing and choose a sufficient
lintel and use acroprops?

2) What size does the hole need to be to support a 32" door? I assume
that a bit more than the width of door+width of casing x 2 will be
required.

3) there's going to be brick at the base of the door - I assume I just
chisel out enough of this to lay a solid floor over it.

4) Do I just go at it with a hammer and cold chisel, or should I get
hold of something like a stihl saw to make the initial cut?

5) I assume there are no requirements re's fire rated doors etc. as
it'll be an interior door.

Cheers,
imanc




Sounds like the old outside loo, or possibly a coal-shed. Presumably the
kitchen is single story so when you say the wall is load bearing, you
mean it is helping to support the sloping roof of the kitchen. The
direction of the "slope" will tell you the direction of the roof joists.
Even if the joists go perpendicular to this wall, the wall won't be
carrying that much load. If you are going to replace the ceiling anyway,
take that down first and you can see what is going on.