We are going to renovate a house from 1910. We plan to change the layout and wonder if this is possible. I know that the orange marking is load-bearing, but what about the yellow marking? We want to create a larger veranda with a 6-meter-long opening from the large room in the middle. How large a steel beam do we need? Is this possible?? The ceiling height is 2.8 meters. The attic floor is built with 15*15 cm beams with a center-to-center measurement of 120 cm with boards below and above them. We are going to furnish the attic, and the purple marking should be an opening up to the upper floor with stairs. Is this possible? We will hire a structural engineer but want to have some idea about it before we do. The interior walls are made of claystone, and the exterior walls are in more than double-layer brick, quite thick.
Does anyone know a good structural engineer to hire in the Skåne Lund area?
How much extra work might it be to do this?
Is it a shame to change the layout so much in an old house?
It is good to start a project of this kind with a scaled drawing with correct wall thicknesses. Get a laser meter, and you can sort it out fairly quickly. With an older masonry house of this kind, it is a bit difficult to assess which walls are load-bearing or not. Walls can have a stabilizing function without bearing vertical loads. The longitudinal exterior walls and the core wall are certainly load-bearing. Creating a 6 m long opening in a masonry exterior wall is, in my opinion, inappropriate for several reasons. Partly because it is doubtful whether the wall can withstand it, and partly because the supporting beam becomes very large. Then I don't think it is necessary to achieve good functions. The ambition to create an open floor plan in a house of this type is doomed to fail. It is better to make a detached extension that contains everything you are striving for. Connect it to the old house with a glazed connection.
