# Forum Home Renovation Structural Renovation  relocating internal brick walls in a double brick house

## DeadlySchnauzer

For the life of me I can not find any information on this. We have a double brick house with brick internal walls. The house is raised ~1m off the ground with suspended floor boards, so the internal brick walls all go down though the floor and have their own foundations underneath the house. This seems to make relocating internal walls an impossible (and/or expensive) proposition, as new foundations would have to be laid underneath the house, and the walls built all the way up through the floor in their new location. 
Is there some cheaper/easier way to do this? I know we could just knock down existing walls and put stud walls up in the new locations, but these would
a) have a completely different finish to the existing plastered brick
b) cause cracking (i think) where they join the brick walls due to the different thermal properties. 
is it just impossible to internally reconfigure this kind of double brick house?

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## rrobor

Not as easy as that, there will be a plate on top of the wall and your roof will be tied to that plate. To remove a wall you would need to create a bulkhead and all sorts. You need an engineer to figure that out.

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## DeadlySchnauzer

So in other words there is no way to renovate internal walls in a double brick house easily? 
Has anyone had experience doing this to their double brick house? I have pretty much accepted that it won't be possible to DIY, but would be interested to know rough costs for getting it done professionally? 
thanks

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## ScroozAdmin

You need to be pretty careful when dealing with internal masonry walls, they are usually loadbearing or could be tying other walls or structural elements laterally or possibly offer some structural benefit that isn't immediately obvious.  
Its easy enough to reconfigure an internal layout in this type of property but you need an engineer to check your proposals, do any required calculations and draw it up for pricing. You might get lucky and they could be just masonry partition walls in which case you can just remove them and you also don't necessarily need new foundations for the new walls, you can build off steelwork hidden under the floor. Engineer or Architect is the only way to go.

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## Bleedin Thumb

You have to determine if the internal walls are load bearing - chances are that with that type of construction they will be. as rrrrober says get advise from someone that can inspect the roof 
EDIT Scruffy beat me to it.

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## DeadlySchnauzer

Alright i feel slightly better now (for a while was imagining that our only option was knock down/rebuild  :Smilie: . Thanks for the info everyone.

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## Haveago1

It is certainly do able. I have done it, removed a couple of brick walls and used Universal Beams to take the load. Steel is great!! 
Get your new floorplan wish list together and talk to an Engineer or Architect to discuss possibilities.

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