Removing beams

[JontyG]

Hi all,

I am in the process of renovating my house. One of the jobs I have planned is to remove a few beams that are running accross the ceiling in one of the rooms.

I am almost 100% certain that the beams are purely cosmetic, and do not serve any structural purpose - they are spaced at 1250mm centre-to-centre, and I know that the joists for the floor above are at 450mm centre-to-centre.

I'm looking for suggestions as to the best method of removing the beams, without causing too much damage to the rest of the ceiling - I'd like to minimise the plaster work required to repair any damage caused.

I have attached pics.

Many thanks,
Jonty

[pawnhead]

"Almost" certain is not good enough. That could be just the exposed bottom edge of a much deeper beam, and the floor joists above could be butted in between the beams, with the ceiling lining that you can see, nailed directly to the narrower joists, in between the beams.

Which direction do the floor joists run?

I'd knock a hole in the ceiling, next to a beam and have a look so that you're certain.

If they're structural, then you could always screw furring channel across the beams (If they can span 1250. Ask Rod in the plastering section) and screw a new ceiling under it, or put noggins between the beams and nail a new ceiling up to the underside.

You must maintain a minimum 2400mm ceiling height, but it looks like you're alright on that score, by looking at the amount of meat left above your doors there.

[silentC]

Bit hard to tell from the picture, but is the cornice plaster or timber? If it's timber, you could prise it away and you might be able to see what's up there. If you're right and they're not structural (I'd be surprised but people do some strange things in houses) then they're probably still going to be difficult to get down without making a mess. I'd be inclined to go with John's suggestion and just hang a new ceiling over the lot, although by the look of the third picture, your ceiling height is already pretty low.

[JontyG]

Bit hard to tell from the picture, but is the cornice plaster or timber? If it's timber, you could prise it away and you might be able to see what's up there. If you're right and they're not structural (I'd be surprised but people do some strange things in houses) then they're probably still going to be difficult to get down without making a mess. I'd be inclined to go with John's suggestion and just hang a new ceiling over the lot, although by the look of the third picture, your ceiling height is already pretty low.

Thanks for the quick replies!

I'll remove the timber cornice, as per your suggestion, and see if I can get a better idea of what's going on.

The ceiling is already fairly low, as you picked up on, but we may well just install a new ceiling to cover up the beams.

Cheers,
Jonty

[JontyG]

Which direction do the floor joists run?

The joists run in the same direction as the beams in the picture (east-west), with the floorboards running north-south over them.

You must maintain a minimum 2400mm ceiling height, but it looks like you're alright on that score, by looking at the amount of meat left above your doors there.

Currently floor to bottom of beams is 2550mm, our floor is going to be raised ~30mm soon, so we will be cutting it close if we just install a new ceiling.

Anyway, I removed a section of cornice and cut a small whole to have a look.

Seems the beams are not the lower edge of a bigger beam. Not sure if you can tell from the pics I took, but they just seem to be a 75mm x 35mm beam passing under the existing ceiling.

Not sure if this sheds any more light on whether or not they're structural.

Cheers,
Jonty

[silentC]

Looks like a plaster ceiling. They're not holding the ceiling up, are they? Just seems strange that someone would go to the bother of installing beams like that for no purpose. Can you tell if they are attached to the wall frame? Do they go through the lining?

I have seen a very weird set up once where artificial beams were fixed to the ceiling joists after the ceiling was hung to give the appearance of exposed beams. But they were made from polystyrene!

I think your best option is to leave them there and hang a new ceiling. Furring channel and plaster will only add another 30 or 40mm to the 30mm you're raising the floor by.

[thebuildingsurv]

Is the upper storey an extension or was it always 2 storey ?

[JontyG]

Is the upper storey an extension or was it always 2 storey ?

It's an extension...I gather these beams have something to do with it being an extension then?

The other thing is the beams in question are only present in the one room, they don't span across into other rooms on the ground floor. The adjoining rooms have significantly higher ceilings, and there are no beams to be seen. The 2nd storey extension is not just above that room - the new level was added to the whole area of the house (does that make sense??)

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[thebuildingsurv]

I imagine it was probably a flat roof with exposed rafters, they probably left rafters and the cieling there when the did the extension. Probably fine to remove and fix plaster to bottom of floor joist, howver i would get advice from a builder etc once you have removed plaster, If you house comes crashing down dont blame me.

[pawnhead]

Here is a picture of my ceilings which my father renovated thirty years ago:



It was originally joint strips covering masonite, but the strips were removed and dummy rafters installed. He did a similar thing when he lowered the high ornate ceilings in a previous place at Mosman. A nice cosy seventies look. I intend to remove them, and install a plasterboard ceiling with P50 shadowline instead of cornices. It will then match the sleek look of the renovations I’ve done out the back:
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y26...e/Jan01548.jpg
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y26...e/Dec31497.jpg
It was originally a steeper pitch, lined with caravan style Taiwanese ply, with dummy rafters over the joints. I stripped it all, then I cranked it up a foot, before re-lining it.

In your case, it looks a bit like fibrous plaster, but I haven’t seen it with such rough edges before. They’re almost certainly dummy beams. They were somewhat popular in the seventies, but I’d investigate a bit further. I can see that they were once stained to give that exposed timber look that my old man liked so much.

How thick is the ceiling, and what is it made of?
Is it joined above the dummy beams?
What’s holding it up?

I’d cut a bit more out, next to the wall, but within the cover of the old timber cornice so you won’t have to repair it. Be careful of that conduit that’s in the pic. It’s probably got your light wiring in it. Then I’d slide a mirror up against the wall, and shine a light on the mirror, angled upwards. You should be able to see what the structure is composed of.

I can see that that room was probably added on afterwards, since there is a wide reveal in your doorway, probably covering an old external cavity wall. It’s also indicated by the fact that the other ceilings are much higher. Then someone has built on top of the lot.
If your upper floor level is all the same, then there must be a big cavity between the ceiling and the upper floor joists.

You may be able to remove the beams and plaster the joints in the existing ceiling, but it’s more than likely a continuous ceiling that’s probably intact behind the beams.
You also may be able to remove the whole ceiling, and structure, and then line the underside of the joists to get a high ceiling, as suggested by thebuildingsurv, however this would involve investigating the integrity of the far outer wall first. It may not be feasible, or it may require some stiffening, if they’ve just whacked an extension on top of it.

[OBBob]

Wow Pawnhead that looks pretty nice. I thought tradies didn't work on their own house!! Like mechanics and their cars.

[pawnhead]

Thanks for that OBBob.

There's a thread on the bi-fold doors that I made here, if anyone's interested in bi-folds that fold back flat against a wall, instead of sticking out at 90 degrees like most.