Bricklaying & Repointing

Creating a new door opening in a load-bearing wall

Anonymous user 23/02/2024 - 3.36 PM

Dear all, I was wondering if you can help. I have a 2 bedroom mid-terrace stone property. The older 19th century front part of the property comprises a front reception room with 2 bedrooms above it. The younger 20th century part of the property is in the form of a single storey extension that extends from the back of the older property. The single storey houses the property’s only kitchen and bathroom running beside each other with a solid wall in between. The kitchen can be accessed from the front reception room via a single internal door. The bathroom, however, can only be accessed from the kitchen via a door situated in the wall that separates the kitchen from the bathroom. In other words, you have to access the kitchen before you can access the bathroom. Thus, there is a solid wall that separates the kitchen and bathroom from the front reception room. This wall measures about 3 metres in length and 2.5 metres in height. In the segment of the wall that separates the kitchen from the front reception room, there is a single door opening that allows access from the front reception room to the kitchen. However, the bathroom is completely separated from the front reception room by the same wall. I believe that this internal wall may be a load-bearing wall as it seems to be lined directly underneath the 19th century back bedroom external wall. The enquiry I have is will it be feasible for me to create a single door opening in this internal wall that allows direct access from the front reception room to the bathroom. The door opening is to be about 900 mm in width and about 2,100 mm in height. It may mean that once the door opening is made, I may have to reinforce the remainder of the wall using heavy duty bricks or concrete blocks. If so, will I need to dig the ground to lay foundations for the reinforcing internal wall? Your thoughts please? Cheers.