We are in the process of furnishing the basement and as part of that, we want to enlarge the existing basement windows. We plan to widen the openings from 1000 mm to 1300 mm. The house is a two-story house from 1936 with a wood frame on a foundation of concrete blocks, concrete slabs between the basement and the first floor (measured at 35 cm).
Basement windows are aligned with windows on the second floor.
I had an engineer here today who insisted on putting in beams, but I wonder if that's really necessary. I got the feeling that the engineer was a bit comfortable and just did what he usually did. My hope was that we could skip the beams due to cost reasons since the slab is so thick and the basement windows are in line with the windows on the second floor (and as I assume do not transfer significant weight down to the slab, but maybe I'm thinking wrong?).
Can someone explain to me what is wrong with my reasoning?
Jonas
Basement windows are aligned with windows on the second floor.
I had an engineer here today who insisted on putting in beams, but I wonder if that's really necessary. I got the feeling that the engineer was a bit comfortable and just did what he usually did. My hope was that we could skip the beams due to cost reasons since the slab is so thick and the basement windows are in line with the windows on the second floor (and as I assume do not transfer significant weight down to the slab, but maybe I'm thinking wrong?).
Can someone explain to me what is wrong with my reasoning?
Jonas
Hello and welcome to the Byggahus forum!
The basement wall is most likely supported over each basement window. Either through the concrete floor slab resting on the wall being designed as a edge beam over the opening, or there is a concrete beam as the first course above the window. In addition, there is probably extra longitudinal reinforcement added. You cannot widen the window opening without reconstructing the support. How complicated this is depends on the method used initially. The action requires a building application with structural calculations.
I don't think the effort is worth the benefit. Making the window openings larger by cutting the wall downwards while keeping the width measurement is a simple measure that provides very good light exchange compared to the current situation.
A very beautiful house. Is it from Svenska trähus in Tranås?
The basement wall is most likely supported over each basement window. Either through the concrete floor slab resting on the wall being designed as a edge beam over the opening, or there is a concrete beam as the first course above the window. In addition, there is probably extra longitudinal reinforcement added. You cannot widen the window opening without reconstructing the support. How complicated this is depends on the method used initially. The action requires a building application with structural calculations.
I don't think the effort is worth the benefit. Making the window openings larger by cutting the wall downwards while keeping the width measurement is a simple measure that provides very good light exchange compared to the current situation.
A very beautiful house. Is it from Svenska trähus in Tranås?