I realized the wall specifications for my double storey landed house is a combination of RC + brickwork + precast panels. When I look at the progress pictures, it seems like most of the walls on the ground floor are precast panels. This kinda throws off my plans to extend kitchens / bedrooms.

1) How do I know if a prefab/precast concrete wall is load bearing or not?

2) How do contractors deal with hacking them and how would it differ in terms of cost when compared hacking normal brickwall?

Thanks!

This post has been edited by boyan: Dec 21 2020, 06:48 AM

my developer gives me a layout plan of my apt indicating which walls can hack

Meaning which precast concrete walls are safe to hack?

Or are those walls actually brick walls (which would be safe anyway)?

But yeah, it would be helpful to get that! I guess I'll need to inquire more.

This post has been edited by boyan: Dec 20 2020, 09:19 PM

Generally the RC wall are the ones forming the skeleton. The rest will be filled in later with bricks/AAC blocks.


Brickwalls sometimes even have airgap on the top so its not supporting anything useful.

Your developer should be able to advise which are RC and which are non RC in the layout plan.
Newer condos use RC structural wall for speed of construction.

This is important if you need to hack to add new power sockets/other pipe runs.

Old condos (low density) built like a double storey house on steroids/shoplot style usually just avoid the beams and columns only as majority brickwall.

Woops, I forgot to clarify that my house is actually a landed double storey terrace, not actually an apartment.

So am looking at scenarios where I might fully extend to the back both storeys, and even demolish some internal walls to make bigger room.

Here's a drone-flyby showing the construction progress (thanks to a fellow resident! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8l5lN_J5_ms&t=289s)



I don't see any walls built using bricks on the ground floor, so my worry is that both internal and external walls are using precast concrete. For some of these walls I might need to add new power points, or even demolish them outright for renovation purposes.

From the looks of it, I can't quite distinguish the RC structure - and my worry is that the whole of 1st floor will eventually be supported by both internal and external precast walls of ground floor - which would make all walls of ground floor load bearing = hence cannot be demolished like the typical brick wall (at least not that straightforward).

Just asking here if someone's gone thru the same experience (precast landed house slated for major reno), or anyone with construction experience. On the other hand I've also sent an email to the developer to inquire on walls as well.

my place all RC, even the hackable walls are RC

Wow. How was it when it comes to renovation (effort, cost, contractor willing to do the job etc) e.g

- drilling in to hang fixtures
- hacking to make way for additional power point wiring
- fully demolish a wall to make way for bigger kitchen / room

Thanks!

hacking away a wall but the wall has a door way, and two windows so its just the 2 lower half got a small piece of wall. Even that took 2-3 days to complete cause concrete very difficult to hack. yup make way for a bigger kitchen, want to join the dry and wet together as my kitchen space is super small.

got indon workers to do it. i think it cost me around 4k. need to do water proofing and retiling.

This post has been edited by idoblu: Dec 21 2020, 08:00 AM

Exactly what I wanted to do! That wall with doorway and two windows separating kitchen and yard has to go for me to join the dry and wet kitchen. Crossing fingers that kind of wall wouldn't be load-bearing, especially with it having door and windows. But 2-3 days, wow. I'd reckon it'll come off within half a day if it was just bricks.

Drilling and installing wiring should still be OK.
Just that hacking will take more effort

Indon at 4K? Wow. That's for demolishing only, or inclusive of water proofing and retiling? Wonder what's the estimated cost for just demolishing.

Lastly - curious why the need to waterproof?

share you one photo....i cant find the rest lol. price includes all labor cost and materials except new tiles

It'd be great if I can find contractor who can saw thru concrete I guess.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=217&v=-Fflo...eature=youtu.be

Looking at the RC they demolished - glad to see not a lot of steel rods in it, and the ones I could see are quite thin. But yeah, the concrete itself is much tougher than bricks.

Going directly to worker instead of engineer first. Waiting for house to collapse only

Did you even read the whole thing before commenting?

- drilling in to hang fixtures
Small job for couple hundred bucks will be hard to get people to do. In terms of economic sense 90% of other jobs make more money so might as well get a rotary hammer and DIY.

- hacking to make way for additional power point wiring
depending on the scope. if just hacking out one more socket 3x3 next to existing one still can DIY.
chasing if short runs under 2m can DIY with rotary hammer + chisel. then need to get cement adhesive (susu) + cement mortar to fill the chase.
if full house runs better to do it with zero furniture as all these will create a lot of dust when drilling and chiseling and some grinder edits.

- fully demolish a wall to make way for bigger kitchen / room
proper demo hammer will do it fast (Hilti and up)
china machine take a bit longer but its just a wall, not those sewage concrete box or LRT track sections so still doable, but the china machine is waste of time for deep coring usage.

This post has been edited by ceo684: Dec 22 2020, 12:12 AM

Not much of a DIY person when it comes to large projects, but yeah I guess I definitely need to upgrade my hammer drill to rotary hammer now.

For big ones, I'm gonna plan it all out during reno prior to moving in. Just a bit apprehensive in case contractors slay me with huge bill due to having to work with existing precast concrete.

https://www.12rent.my/pd-bosch-gsh-3-e-demo...hammer-650w.cfm
it should be ok but the only thing hacking off walls need time to do, so if you want to save on their removal labour you can try your hand at smashing the walls because it just need someone to operate (with proper PPE - face shield and mask of course)

Uh... I need perhaps an architect or a structural engineer to help me...

I'm looking at the floor plan and also the progress photo for my house type, and I'm wondering really if I can extend to the back both stories by tearing down the back walls.

From the progress photo you can see that the walls are prefabricated concrete panels.

So my question is - would there still be the normal skeletal beams + columns for this kind of house that's going to carry the weight?

Or the prefab walls themselves are load bearing - meaning I can't tear them down?

can you indicate which part of wall that you want to hack?