Was wondering in terms of structure, can the walls between the terrace houses be broken thru eg. front part of house or back part at lower floor and upper floor?

Some people say may risk collapsing.


Anyone done before?

interested to know about this too

If break the wall dy, feel like ntg to sokong the roof. feel like one day will collapse

Create openings (doors, etc). No need to take down entire wall.
won't collapse!

Anyone knows construction/architecture?

If compare big living rooms in bungalows vs small living rooms in terrace house, what is difference to ceiling support?

Are there more metal support in bungalow ceilings?

Generally, brickwalls aren't needed to support the structure. When contractors build a house, they build the entire structure first, including the upper storeys. The structure is composed of beams and columns that are made from reinforced steel and concrete. Afterwards, they go back and erect the brickwalls. Bricks are actually very fragile and brittle and don't support weight at all. The exception is that some building designs call for the insertion of something called "stiffeners" at regular intervals along the walls. These do help to support the structure and should not be demolished.

Otherwise, tearing down walls is generally safe. Of course, you must know the difference between which parts are merely brickwalls and which parts are weight-bearing columns and stiffeners.

In any case, I think that this sounds like a major renovation and I think you would need approval from your local authority to do something like this. The authority would most likely require you to submit an architectural plan for the changes you intend to make and to do this, you would need to get the original architectural plans anyway, so you'd know where the stiffeners and columns are.

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Added on April 19, 2010, 3:04 pmDefinitely, yes. If the design calls for more space between columns, the engineer will specify thicker steel reinforcement bars or even overlapping bars for the beams and columns.

This post has been edited by wankongyew: Apr 19 2010, 03:04 PM

as long as u don't mess around with column, beam.. it ok.. anyway.. u need to submit plan for approval.. and plan must be certified by professional.

they need to have original drawing that can be obtained from developer

Thanks for your knowledge input.

Those reinforcement bars are in the ceiling?

So if there is a wide open living area with no columns/pillars in middle, that means ceiling is reinforced?

no reinforcement in ceiling.

The ceiling is supported by the beams which is supported by the columns.

Have done something similar before where I knocked down the walls between two semi-d to create a big bangalow

The beams is running across ceilings then.

So the difference between wide living rooms and small rooms is the beams.

So that means connecting terraces may not be possible, as beams are not there or strong enough.

I think it would be quite unusual to have a beam straight across above a living room. Normally, there are columns in the corners of each room and the beams sit on top of the beams. Brickwalls are then erected on top of the beams. But just take a look at your construction drawings and you will know for sure.

just dont mess with the columns, they are generally made up of concrete and some steel bars inside. if you do insist on hacking off a section of the wall off, pay attention to the colour of the material when drilling/hacking. if its orangeish colour then its generally just the clay bricks. if its all gray and the wall seems harder than the other parts of the wall, stop, it may well be the column that you are messing with. getting the structural plan from the developer or the structural consultant would be safest way but if want a faster way, you could get an experienced structural engineer friend to go to the house and hopefully he could tell you exactly where the columns are. this is assuming that you are not following the whole procedure of applying to the local council and waiting for their approval.....

2cents

normally the beams will run on top of the brick wall

just build a big sliding glass door