Approx cost to remove parlor wall
We put in an offer in on a 18′ frame townhouse in Greenpoint. It is attached typical style townhouse with the entry stairwell with the parlor to the left with a small single door. If we win the bid, before moving in we would like to open up the parlor to the entry, but leave…
We put in an offer in on a 18′ frame townhouse in Greenpoint. It is attached typical style townhouse with the entry stairwell with the parlor to the left with a small single door. If we win the bid, before moving in we would like to open up the parlor to the entry, but leave the airlock vestibule, which would result removing a span of about 12-15 feet to open up the living room. Given the width of the house and the stiarwell, I assume it will need to be beamed with a header and soffited and we would like to leave the sculpted plasterwork around the two ceiling areas intact. In the rear parlor someone has already opened up the wall between the two original back rooms and made the side room into a kitchen, but we would like to open it up taller and wider than it is as well as do the same thing upstairs in the rear bedroom to make a wider master bedroom. That wall is also about 15′ long and is on the top floor so not sure it would need beamed, but we would want to have a shallow beam anyway to preserve the tin ceilings on both sides. For someone who has taken out a parlor wall, what is a typical ballpark figure just to take out the parlor wall and install a wooden beam including removing the debris? We will be getting an engineer, GC etc, but at this point prior to even purchasing we were just curious if we were looking at 1K, 5K, 10K per wall or what? We would finish it out ourselves, so we really just a rough estimate of what removing a wall, carting off the debris, and beaming it back would cost.
Hi,
You’d likely have to install columns to either side of the desired opening, and bring those down to the cellar, where you’d pour a couple new spot footings (unless you already have lally columns down there, as many of these rowhouses tend to have. From a means-and-methods point of view that may mean shoring to either side of the wall area you wish to remove. A girder would be installed atop the columns. The 5k for installation sounds a little bit low when you consider the shoring, selective demolition, concrete work, steel work. It’s a small scope of work, but there are a series of steps that would be difficult to bypass, I’d say up that budget to 8.5k for hard cost of construction. You would want a structural engineer to size these for you.
-A Structural Engineer
http://www.agenciegroup.com
Thanks for the replies. It is a legal 2 family (originally a 1 family) currently setup as 2 railroad-style floor throughs, but we are going to use the whole house as a single family. A full garden level basement with front door under the stoop and a rear door to the yard with double windows front and back and a 9′ ceiling and smooth level concrete floor is down below but it is unfinished – although we will be eventually finishing it out as a den, office, and laundry. For now we are interested in working on the main 2 floors and using the basement for storage and laundry. The owner didn’t really do much in the apartment conversions other than sealing up (nailing shut) the various doors to the entry hallway on both floors leaving only one operating doorway from the hallway into each “apartment” and making the two smaller rear back rooms as kitchens on the two floors, so luckily it will not be a hard conversion back to a single family with living room kitchen and dining on the parlor floor and bedrooms up above. On the parlor floor they opened up that rear wall and installed a half-wall similar to a “bar” between the kitchen area and the rear parlor living room, and on the top floor they simply cut a door between these two rooms making the smaller room the kitchen and the larger area the living room. We just want the entire parlor floor to be one large open room excluding the bathroom of course, and the master bedroom to be the full house width in the back so really 3 walls will need removed and opened up. Looks like our offer is going to be accepted, so I will be posting back for suggestions on some folks to provide estimates closer to closing. I’m happy to hear it isn’t going to be all that expensive for the demo part anyway. My partner and I have redone many houses out of state prior to moving here and can lay tile, backsplash, hardwood floors, finish plaster, hang and finish sheetrock, install fixtures, plumbing, cabinets, appliances, paint, etc. We just didn’t want to try wall removal on our own not having ever redone attached townhouse style buildings before. This is going to be our house for many years to come so we aren’t in any hurry for anything other than opening things up and finishing out the parlor floor and rear master bedroom before moving in, but we are looking forward to finally being home owners here in Brooklyn after renting here for quite some time. We enjoy reading Brownstoner every day and touring open houses for ideas. You guys are great! Thanks!
Masterbuilder (http://bstoner.wpengine.com/profile/masterbuilder) did something very similar to this for our rowhouse, also doing all of the finishing work for it.
http://www.bgrnow.com
Did a good job and made sure it was structurally sound.
Construction, assuming you handle the finish work, should run less or close to 5K.
You don’t say if this is a 3 family or greater, though it doesn’t sound like it.
In a building your width, interior partitions are not structural, but can be called “stiffening” walls. So you would not be changing egress or structure.
If you were to file plans etc, that would add another 5K to the project.
We utilize paralams in this application, even though it is overkill. Every house is different, especially if there is already significant settling.