How to strengthen the doorway

To make the premises more functional and attractive from an aesthetic point of view, their owners seek to build various options for extensions; move interior partitions; punch, expand, or change the shape of window or door openings. Such actions are qualified as redevelopment of the space of the room.

This is a laborious and rather troublesome business - at least for those who are seeking to do this kind of work with their own hands. Even if the building is privately owned, such actions must be coordinated with the appropriate authority.

Permits for redevelopment issues housing inspection, and what is required for this, and how the arrangement and strengthening of doorways, we will tell using the video in this article.

Permission of проём

Imagine that the transfer of the doorway, even if it is made in the non-bearing interior partition, is also a redevelopment. Only here the owners of apartments can not always correctly determine whether this or that wall is non-bearing, and they do not always think about what they are doing, relying on the Russian "maybe."

As a result, the price of such actions turns out to be too high: even if unauthorized intervention did not lead to destruction, it is impossible to sell an apartment or a house after unauthorized re-planning. Therefore, even if you just need to move the door, do everything as it should be.

How to know if the wall is bearing

Both the apartment and the private dwelling house, the owner has a floor plan, which when entering the building into operation is issued by the BTI. Most often, bearing walls on it are displayed thicker than partitions. But this is not always the case, and here a lot depends on the type of house.

• In the houses that we used to call "Khrushchev", especially brick, the partitions are always non-bearing. But in multi-panel prefabricated buildings, built on modern projects, the load from the floors are distributed to almost all partitions. There is nothing surprising in this, just the construction technologies change with time, and this must be taken into account.

• External and interroom walls are always bearing. As for the interior wall, the easiest way to determine whether it is a carrier, according to its thickness. The enclosing structure with a thickness of 8-10 cm, clearly does not bear any loads, and you can safely make a new opening in it, laying an old brick.

Note! The only thing that the owner of the apartment needs to do in this case is to notify the housing inspectorate about the redevelopment of the passage. To do this, take a copy of the floor plan of the room, display on it constructive changes, and attach it to the appropriate application.

At the appointed time, an inspection officer will come to you, and will properly coordinate and issue the acceptance of the apartment after the redevelopment has been made. To slightly expand the opening in such a partition, no approvals are required.

But how to get permission for more significant structural changes in the building envelope, tell the instruction in our next chapter.

How to align the opening in the bearing wall

As you can see, with the usual partitions, everything is simple, and approval for the transfer of the opening is made upon completion of the work. It is quite another thing when it comes to the bearing wall. To make such structural changes in it, permission is required - and it is necessary to coordinate with the housing inspection both the transfer and the extension of the aperture.

• By the way, not only individuals, but also legal entities should receive permission for redevelopment. So a firm that has conceived such changes, for example, in its office, is also obliged to have a permitting document in its hands. The only thing that does not require approvals, so this change in the direction of opening the inner door.
• To obtain permission to make design changes in the supporting wall, first of all, you need to get a technical opinion of the organization that designed the building. If you succeeded, then with this paper you can safely go to the design bureau, order a redevelopment project. It looks approximately as shown in the photo below.

• Further, to the drawing apply a copy of the certificate of ownership and the technical passport to the apartment, and write an application for the production of redevelopment. After a month and a half, you will receive the desired permission - although not a fact. A 100% positive answer will be given to you if you have a conclusion from the author of the project.
• If you failed to get such a conclusion, then there is no guarantee that you will be allowed to carry the opening, even if you submit a project. In any case, it is necessary to apply for coordination in advance, since, in fact, unauthorized re-planning, permission will not be issued at all, but also punished.
• Once done with the approvals, and you finally have permission, you can start work. When they are completed, the landlord must notify the housing inspection and ensure the presence of her representative for the acceptance and preparation of the relevant act. After that, an engineer from the BTI will come to you, who will put the last point in this epic.

• What situations are taken into account by the housing inspectorate when considering an application for redevelopment of the passage in the supporting wall? Basically, difficulties arise with the owners of apartments in high-rise buildings. First of all, the total number of floors in the house, as well as the floor on which the apartment is located, matters.
• The higher it is, the less the load on the ceiling, and the greater the chance of getting approval for the reconstruction of the wall. Takes into account the age of the building. If he, for example, is more than half a century old, it may be simply dangerous to touch the dilapidated structures. If permission to punch and is given in such cases, then most often it is limited to the width of the aperture of 90 cm.
• Again, when it comes to multi-storey buildings, the housing inspection examines the condition of the walls in all the apartments below and above you. If someone from your neighbors has already punched an opening in this wall, then you may not get permission - unless you make it so that your opening by location exactly matches their opening. And they may, on the contrary, demand that it be shifted to the side.

At the same time all related factors are analyzed. For example, the opening on the inner wall should not be in the joint zone of the floor slabs; it also cannot be located closer than one meter to the outer wall.

An obstacle for punching aperture can be the presence of ventilation channels or chimneys, electrical wiring, which can not be transferred. All these nuances require careful examination - which is what the housing inspectorate does when considering applications.

The project, as the basis of redevelopment work

The bearing wall, the initial integrity of which is broken by knocking out or cutting out a fragment, needs to be strengthened. For this purpose, metal structures are used, whose role is to compensate for the lost strength of the wall.

For this and need a redevelopment project. In addition to the size of the aperture, and the metal-roll used to reinforce it, you can find many other necessary information in the drawings.

• For example, the project will propose a variant for arranging temporary support struts, designate installation sites for anchors, and enlargedly shows metal attachment points to the floor. Designers will even suggest the best way to finish the slopes - because you need to somehow hide the metal structure.

• Variants of framing openings are different, depending on the type of walls. In houses erected on a reinforced concrete or metal frame, or with monolithic walls, the reinforcement is minimal, and on the upper floors may not be foreseen at all.

If we talk about the brickwork, then there will have to strengthen the opening even in the partition. But in the prefabricated houses of modern construction, rescheduling doorways will not be allowed at all.

The thing is that they are building today not even from separate panels, but from bulk blocks that are carrying around the entire perimeter. Accordingly, there is no question of any additional openings.

Aperture enhancement technology

It turns out that most often the apertures are pierced in the brick walls.

To strengthen them, a channel is usually used, which as a lintel is placed on both sides into pre-cut grooves with the prepared fifth. They are anchored between themselves with anchor bolts, and if the wall thickness exceeds 50 cm, they also weld cross-pieces to them.

• The length of the steel beams is calculated as follows: the height of the opening is divided in half, and 15 cm is added to the figure.
• Regardless of whether a new opening is made in a brick wall, or an old one expands, reinforcement is first carried out, and then fragments of slopes are removed. If this is done manually, then through the perimeter of the aperture drill through holes, and then use a jackhammer.

• But in general, there is such a technology as diamond cutting of structures. It is performed at the request of the customer by specialized firms that have in their arsenal a variety of equipment that allows cutting concrete, reinforced concrete and thick brickwork quickly and without dust.
• Another thing is that not in every city, not to mention the smaller settlements, such a service is available. In this case, only the percussion instrument remains, but, say, in panel houses, it cannot be used - and this will certainly be reflected in the project. Vibrations and shock loads can cause cracks in the concrete. And this may be fraught with for the whole house, although the consequences may not be immediately apparent.
• As for the reinforcement of the slopes, in some cases it is not produced. If such a need exists, then a frame along the entire perimeter is mounted from the same channel bar or non-equal-angle steel corner. That's what the project of re-planning of openings is for: why do work at random, when everything will be calculated in the drawings to the smallest detail.

• At construction of walls and partitions various materials are used: the wall can be monolithic, modular, well, revetted with a brick or decorative blocks. Naturally, all this influences the choice of the amplification option of the pierced opening. Only the marking process looks the same.

Walls whose thickness exceeds 0.5m are not so rare - especially when the apertures are made their way in the basement. In this case, even the wall saw cannot make a cut right through the entire thickness. Therefore, the marking has to be done from two sides.

The correct markup - the key to high-quality cutting

This is quite difficult, since the floors in rooms located on opposite sides of the wall can be at different levels. The main task is to correctly determine the mark of the horizontal part of the opening on the one hand, and accurately transfer it to the other side.

• Do this using a water or laser level, focusing on perpendicular walls, or through drilling through the perimeter of the aperture. Those who are trying to do this kind of work on their own should be aware that in order to avoid shifting marks, the drill should enter the wall strictly at right angles.
• To achieve this, all means are good: someone pulls the mooring cord, which plasteers use to control the horizontal position of the masonry rows; Someone is temporarily fixing a guide profile on the wall, as is done by gypsum plasterboards. The main thing is to understand how important it is to make the markup correctly.

• For firms providing customers with similar services, such problems do not exist. Most of them use special electronic equipment consisting of such elements as a detector and a target. They are installed on opposite surfaces of the wall, and when they are combined, they give a sound signal.

If the markup is done correctly, we can assume that half the work has already been done. After this, the wall is started to be broken in the place where the jumper will be installed.

We think everyone understands why it is mounted before removing a piece of wall. The metal beam allows you to redistribute the load from the weight of the ceiling, and the own weight of the wall, and will not allow them to deform or collapse.