Looking for someone who knows elementhus/mockfjärds, ongoing renovation

[Danne G]

looking for someone who can answer some questions about my elementhus as an exterior wall is to be opened, interior wall to be demolished, etc.
I know the house doesn't have studs/framework, so that's a bit confusing for me.
/danne 0705125129

 

[granis70]

Hello, welcome to the forum.

Write a bit more about your house. Year built, number of floors, exterior cladding, photos, and floor plan if you have them. There is quite a difference between different years and whether you have a basement and/or an upper floor.

Also, use the search function to read already created threads. There are a few that contain a lot of great info. Both pictures of personal renovations and links to other places on the internet.

Our house is from '71 with a basement made of hollow concrete blocks, slab on grade on the ground floor, and an unfinished attic with slab flooring. By following the walls in the basement and the exposed slab flooring in the attic, we can see where we have the load-bearing walls on the main floor.
Unfortunately, we don't have any construction drawings.

 

[Danne G]

Hello welcome to the forum

Write a little more about your specific house. Year built, number of floors, exterior paneling, photos, and floor plan if you have one. There is quite a difference between different years and whether you have a basement and/or an upper floor.

Also use the search function to read already created threads. There are a few that contain a lot of good info. Both pictures of personal renovations and links to other places online.

Our house is from -71 with a basement made of hollow concrete blocks, slab-on-grade on the ground floor, and an unfinished attic with slab-on-grade. We can, by following the walls in the basement and the exposed slab-on-grade in the attic, see where we have the load-bearing walls on the main floor.
Unfortunately, we have no construction drawings.

Hello. The house was built by my father in 1964-65, basement, 1 floor, and attic. The facade was clad with aluminum, brown concrete tiles on the roof. Just like you wrote, it's built with hollow concrete blocks and has an unfinished attic. All the drawings are of course still available, including the packing list/receipt
Have you yourself removed any load-bearing walls in your house?

 

[Pagno]

Hello!
It is almost impossible to answer your questions without pictures of how the walls look.
It is always possible to reinforce with beams if you want to open or remove part of a wall.
It all depends on where and how you want to make the changes.
Can you sketch the dimensions, write what materials are in each wall, roof slope, take pictures of the design of the roof trusses, and how the intended change should look?
Sketch on paper, take photos, so that we can get a rough idea of how it looks.

Regards, P-A

 

[Danne G]

Hi!
It's almost impossible to answer your questions without pictures of what the walls look like.
You can always use beams to support if you want to open or tear down part of a wall.
It all depends on where and how you want to make the changes.
Can you sketch up the measurements, write down the materials in each wall, the roof slope, take photos of the roof trusses' design and how the intended change should look.
Sketch on paper, take photos, so we can see how it looks somewhat.

Regards, P-A

What needs to be done is that the wall between the kitchen/living room should be completely removed, about 5 meters. I was mostly curious about how people handle the joint on the beams that are in the middle of the load-bearing wall. If I just remove the wall, the beams will fall down. Have you solved it with glulam beams in the attic and 'suspenders' for the beams?

 

[Danne G]

What needs to be done is that the wall between the kitchen/living room should be completely removed, about 5 meters. I was mostly curious how people handle the joint on the elements that lie in the middle of the load-bearing wall. If I just remove the wall, the elements will fall down. Have you solved it with laminated timber in the attic and 'suspenders' for the elements?

Those of you who know a bit more, feel free to contact me by phone
0705125129 so we can perhaps clear up some questions
/Danne

 

[Danne G]

Hi!
It becomes almost impossible to answer your questions without pictures of what the walls look like.
It is always possible to support with beams if you want to open or tear down part of a wall.
It all depends on where and how you want to make the changes.
Can you sketch up the measurements, write what materials are in each wall, roof pitch, take photos of the trusses' design, and how the proposed change should look.
Sketch on paper, take pictures, so we can see how it looks somewhat.

Best regards, P-A

 

[granis70]

Hi. The house was built by my dad in 1964-65, basement, one floor, and attic. The facade was clad with aluminum, brown concrete tiles on the roof. Just as you wrote, it's built with concrete block and has an unfinished attic. All the drawings are of course still there, including the pick list/receipt
Have you removed any load-bearing wall in your house?

What great conditions you have! With a good understanding of the house’s history and all the papers and drawings still available!
No, we haven't removed any load-bearing wall. What we had to address was replacing a load-bearing pillar that the previous owner had ignorantly removed. So I know a bit about how the structural elements behave when they don't have the support they are supposed to have.

 

[Yrrol]

http://www.czbygg.se/menysidor/Elementhusakuten---hjalp_851

 

[Danne G]

[link]

I have talked to Christer on the phone, got some answers to my questions. Slightly busy/stressed to be able to calmly explain exactly how to proceed. The man certainly knows how and why one should or should not. I would love to get in touch with someone who has done similar in their elementhus. I have a plan/design in mind how I want to do it.

 

[bearmaniac]

Hello Danne,

How have your planned renovations been going? I've been living in an Elementhus (1.5-story with a basement) for over 2 years now. When we moved in, a previous owner had already taken down the wall between the dining room and the living room on the main floor (or whatever you want to call these rooms), a span of about 5.5 meters, and replaced it with a support beam. Since another previous owner had also taken down an additional wall and part of another wall, we decided to have an engineer calculate the beam sizes for these three areas in total, and the upshot was that we replaced the previously installed support beam and installed two additional support beams.

I shy away from calling myself an expert, but I have carried out (or rather: had carried out) what is effectively the removal of a wall and installation of a support beam in the house, and I have also had discussions with Christer about the whole thing both before and during the project. Are you still in need of a partner to talk to about such a project?

 

[Danne G]

Hi, it's fun that more people are getting involved and fixing things. Yes, it's coming along nicely; I created open spaces in the house along with an extension on the back long side. I got about 100 square meters of open kitchen/living room, 5.70x18.75 meters. I tore everything out of the house (the remaining part) and installed waterborne underfloor heating, so there was quite a bit to tinker with. It's a bit tedious to live in it at the same time, but you have to deal with it.

 

[Anna0101]

Hello!
We will soon be moving into just such a prefabricated house as you describe! We want to tear down the wall between the kitchen and the living room. We don't have any good blueprints and we are wondering how we should support the wall when we open it up in the best way?! I read that you did quite a bit with your prefabricated house and that you have blueprints?! It would be great if we could get some tips?!

 

[bearmaniac]

First and foremost: is the wall load-bearing? It is difficult to see which walls are load-bearing in a prefab house, it is determined by the direction the elements are located (and it can be different directions in different sections of the house). If possible, I can give some tips on where/how you can look if you send floor plans. If it cannot be determined: assume the wall is load-bearing.

Then: let an engineer calculate which load beam is needed. I would recommend that you have the engineer calculate both a glulam beam and a steel beam. The steel beam takes up a little less vertical space but may take up a little more lateral space instead. What might be worth the engineer knowing is that the weight of the floor joist in a prefab house is about the same as the floor joist in "regular houses" (according to Christer at Elementhusakuten). It is also important to know if the roof trusses are self-supporting or not. I do not have enough knowledge to answer if all prefab house roof trusses are, but ours were at least. In the best case, there is a house binder with all the drawings you might need, but in the worst case, an engineer can manage with a dimensioned floor plan (for example, the one the realtor had in their brochure).

Lastly: a similar question came up in another thread here on the forum. I wrote a small list there with things that might be good to consider (post number 9): https://www.byggahus.se/forum/threads/riva-baerande-vaegg-mockfjaerdshus.350089/