Hi there,

I am in a mist of planning for my house extension and I need some real good advice from you guys.

I want to extend my side of the house for about 15feet and latter in a few more years have extension on the first level.

Do I need to do any piling for a solid and strong structure now?
I plan to make a big balcony on my flat roof in this current extension which in a few more years will turn out into more rooms.
I heard that normal brick walls is not strong enough to hold another floor on top. So What do we normally use if we do not do piling ?    

Hi,

My house is currently on renovation to extend my kitchen. Works is still in progress.

My advice is you must put a piling if you're planning to build a balcony later on. If not, when you want to build a balcony, you have to rebuild back the whole floor that you extend. Like mine, I just extend the ground floor (29 x 10 sqf) but the structure, I build to prepare in case i want to extend the 1st floor later on.

It is not only about the brick, it is the approval from Majlis Perbandaran will be the issue when you want to build a balcony later on.

Anyway, my contractor is very good    and so far the works progress as planned and price wise is cheaper than other house that extend the same size as mine.  .

since u are extending the ground and the first floor, piling is highly recommended. You will need to build ground beam and first floor beam to support the walls and the floors.

oic  . By the way, how does it look 2m x 2m? wouldn't it be looking very large? Is it for the sidewalk too? I mean horizontally?

You will backfill the foundation later and nobody is going to see it and 2mx2m foundation is not big. Sidewalk could be supported by having reinforcement bars extending from the ground beams.

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Added on August 27, 2010, 1:24 am

really ahh? Are you one of the contractor? how many extra feet do we need if we want to use slabs without taking up space of 15' x 22'? I mean do we need to add any additional space for building the walls and frame ?

Can we reuse any sliding door or window casements which are taken out during renovation?