The most transformative building job in an ordinary house is one wall coming out: kitchen and dining room becoming one light-filled space. It is also the job where structure, paperwork and finish quality all meet in a single opening, which is why it belongs with a builder rather than a bold amateur.
Mitchell & Andrew Building Services creates knock-through kitchens across Truro, and this is what doing it properly involves.
Which walls carry the house
Some walls are partitions; others hold up floors, walls and roof above. Reading which is which is a structural judgement, joist directions, what sits above, what the wall itself is built from, confirmed by a structural engineer whose calculations size the beam that will do the wall's old job.
That calculation is not bureaucracy: it sets the steel's size, the padstones that spread its load, and any temporary works needed while the wall comes out. Guessing any of it is how ceilings crack, or worse.
- Engineer confirms load path and sizes the beam.
- Padstones spread the new point loads properly.
- Temporary propping designed before anything is cut.
Steel day, done calmly
The sequence is choreography: props and needles carry the load, the wall comes out in sections, the steel lifts onto its padstones, packs and grout seat it, and only then do the props come down. Done right it is a controlled day's structural work, not a drama.
Mitchell & Andrew Building Services treats the opening as the project's heart: level checked, bearings verified, and the beam boxed to meet fire requirements before finishes. The photograph on this page is exactly this moment on a larger opening, steels and joists carrying what walls once did.
- Load propped, wall out, steel seated, props released: in order.
- Bearings and level verified before boxing in.
- Fire protection to the steel before plasterboard.
Building control and the paperwork
Structural openings are notifiable: building control sees the engineer's calculations, inspects at the right moments and issues completion paperwork. That certificate matters twice, once for safety now and once for every future sale, when solicitors ask who approved the beam.
The tidy path is standard: notify, build to the calculations, inspection, certificate filed with the house documents. It adds days of admin and zero regret.
Living through it, and the invisible join
Knock-throughs are dusty and short: sealed doorways, floor protection and a kitchen kept usable as long as possible make the works livable, and the loud structural stage passes in days. The longer tail is the good part: first fix for the new kitchen layout, plastering, floors flowing as one surface.
The finish standard is simple: nobody should be able to point at where the wall was. Ceiling lines through, floor levels resolved, walls plastered as one plane, and the new kitchen-diner reading as though the house was always this way.
Related pages
Questions customers ask
Can any wall between kitchen and dining room be removed?
Almost any, with the right steel doing the wall's old work: the question is never whether but what beam, sized by an engineer and approved by building control. Partition walls are simpler still.
How disruptive is a knock-through?
The structural stage is days of noise and dust behind sealed sheeting; the finishing stretch is quieter. A well-run job keeps water and a working corner of kitchen alive as long as possible.
What paperwork should the job produce?
Engineer's calculations, building control approval and completion certificate, and electrical certification for the new kitchen wiring. All of it lives with the house documents for the day you sell.
Engineer's numbers, a calm steel day, building control's stamp and a join nobody can find: that is the knock-through kitchen done once and done right.
Mitchell & Andrew Building Services opens Truro kitchens exactly that way. The contact page starts with a look at your wall.
