Expanding The Shop House

[tutsiwarrior]

I've got a 2 floor shop house and plan to purchase the adjacent property (low level shop house structure). My grand design is to demolish it and raise the addition and to open up the existing old shop house walls to provide more space and light. This would require removing walls from the old shop house structure including front to back and to one side to allow the benefit from the new addition next door (an elaborate, free standing affair but connected to the old house). The old shop house has got columns as you would expect. My concern is about load bearing walls. If I can't take out large areas of the existing old shop house walls then the project is not feasible. Would the addition of a few more columns do the trick? (new columns are required for the new construction, yes..I know)

Need to know about loadings for the new construction...what can you suggest?

'shop house' tutsi

[lopburi3]

Have an engineer check it but I do not believe any walls are load bearing in normal home or shop house construction here.

[chownah]

I agree with lopburi3.

But just to comment on what to do when removing a load bearing wall:

A load bearing wall means that the load the wall carries is distributed all along the length of the wall and not just concentrated at columns. If you want to remove a load bearing wall you must provide support for the load that the wall carried and since this load is distributed everywhere along the wall you must provide a beam where the top of the wall was because a beam gives support all along its length to support the load which will be distributed all along its length just like it was distributed all along the length of the load bearing wall. The beam, of course must be supported and this is done with columns. The number of columns depends on the stiffness and strength of the beam you use and the ability of whatever is under the columns to support the column and the strength of the columns.....so....in a nutshell....a load bearing wall is replaced with a beam and columns.

[Heng]

Pan Pan on Sukhumvit have done a fairly interesting conversion with their two shophouses. They lose some floor space, but gain a lot of open space. Probably done for less than 3-4 million in renovations and decor.

[tutsiwarrior]

yeah, just on observation it looks like the structural load (the top floor and roof joists) are taken by the present column and beam arrangement...the walls are simply 'filler'. I expect the same arrangement with the extension. I plan to have a patio...maybe with a fountain, an' maybe I could do an ornamental 'collonade' top floor support arrangement; impractical but architecturally sublime...

(tutsi with a toga and laurels, imbibing nectar and enjoying his shen fui shop house with enclosed patio arrangement...the step daughter and nieces dressed as neo-classical nymphs frolickking about...'uncle tutsi!...the som tam lady is here...!!!')

jesus...where do these bizarre dreams come from...?

[Swelters]

Pan Pan on Sukhumvit have done a fairly interesting conversion with their two shophouses. They lose some floor space, but gain a lot of open space. Probably done for less than 3-4 million in renovations and decor.

Where on Sukhumvit is the Pan Pan?

We are trying some ideas on these double shophouses, such as follows:

[tutsiwarrior]

Pan Pan on Sukhumvit have done a fairly interesting conversion with their two shophouses. They lose some floor space, but gain a lot of open space. Probably done for less than 3-4 million in renovations and decor.

Where on Sukhumvit is the Pan Pan?

We are trying some ideas on these double shophouses, such as follows:

what I'm looking at is four fronted , two of the 4 on two levels already in place and 2 to buy. Number 3 to extend number two and number 4 to remain open as a garden/patio...number 3 on two levels and number four with open patio in front and two levels in the back with a big wall to the front.

tutsi's walled compound (machine gun turret on the roof...)

the step daughter at school just up the road...'do you live in that crazy house with the big walls and the machine gun turret?'...

'yeah, but he's just my stepdad an' doan mean nutin' by it...'

'your step dad is a falang bah'

stepdaughter in fighting posture: 'an yo' mama...doan you ever call my stepdad a falang...bah or otherwise...his name is tutsiwarrior...'

thus did 13 y.o. girls protect the realm from the Philistines...