STRUCTURE: acro props and needles

Propping up the house and putting in the steel beams was one of the things that we left to the professionals. This was just too heavy duty for me to attempt on my own. I did look into hiring Acro props and buying the beams myself but it was actually quite expensive. We needed quite a lot of props and I would also have needed to enlist at least one other person to help with the beams. The steel alone would have cost about £1000. We decided to pay the extra and get someone else to do this bit. I got various quotes for the beams, some of which were actualy quite cheap, but in the end we went for quite a big company. They do major construction projects as well as smaller domestic work and have a dedicated team who do all their structural installation work.

October 2008: The Acro props and needles through the walls to take the load while the beams are being instaled.

This was the one thing in my initial budget that I got completely wrong. I had estimated £1500 for the beams. This wasn't really based on anything more than a rough guess at two people for a couple of days plus some steel. With hindsight I should have done some research and at least made a couple of phone calls. The steel alone was much more than I had imagined.

The standard procedure for propping up a house is to support the floor joists with vertical props and put needles through the walls to take the load while you cut a slot for the beams. Needles are just heavy duty wooden beams with an Acro prop at each end. Once the padstones and beams are installed, the brickwork above is made good. All the props and needles can then be removed.

October 2008: The Acro props and needles cause chaos on the side of the house that is being propped.

The process causes chaos on the side of the house that is being propped. We had to remove the kitchen units to allow for the props, and the walls in two of our upstairs bedrooms were completely trashed. Within our limited budget it was quite expensive to get this done by a contractor, but as the magnitude of the task unfolded it felt like money well spent. The final fee for installing the beams was £2802.

October 2008: We had to remove the kitchen units to allow for the Acro props on the inside of the wall.

October 2008: The needles in the upstairs bedrooms to transfer the weight of the wall onto the floor joists. Thses in turn are propped from below.

October 2008: Once the Acro props and needles are in place the wall can be opened up for the RSJ.