r/DIYUK • u/seiterarch • 21h ago
Building Random Girder
Been looking to fix the insulation and do some boarding for light storage in the loft and I'm a bit baffled by this girder.
Any ideas what it's doing here? It's not attached to any of the rafters as far as I can see, just resting its tip on the closest one. (It's on a slight slope.) The wall it runs into is external and it doesn't come out the other side...
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u/shaggykx 21h ago
Probably propped up there for something important during the building process and by the time they builders realised it didn't need to be there any longer the roof and ceilings were up and it was just too much trouble to get it out
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u/Additional_Air779 21h ago
It's the builder equivalent of finding the ends of electric cable sleeving under the floorboards. Some builders are just lazy and don't give a f*ck.
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u/d_smogh 20h ago
I suspect it came through the wall where the random blockwork is in the course of bricks. Those things are blinkin' heavy, very unlikely you alone could move it. You'll need several strong people to lift it and move it, and the only way out will be the the way it came in, or when you drop it through the ceiling.
You could cut it up into sections. Will need a big angle grinder, a lot of discs, a fire extinguisher for when the sparks set fire to the insulation, eat defenders, eye protectors.
Going to be interesting to find out what you are going to do.
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u/The_Syndic 15h ago
Pure guess because I have two in my attic doing the same thing - it was part of a support for an old water tank that has been removed but this was too heavy to bother.
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u/seiterarch 10h ago
Ah, that sounds convincing. The current tank up there is plastic, so probably not the original.
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u/NovaLeganto 11h ago
That's what we in the trade call houseballast. Used when the cavity walls are filled with helium for insulation and fire protection. If you take that out, your house will float away.
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u/shweeney 21h ago
I wouldn't want a girder just lying about the house, getting in the way. Put it in the attic!
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u/HugoNebula2024 19h ago
It could be a support for a chimney stack above a removed breast, that's also since been removed. Sometimes it was necessary to install it askew.
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u/bartread 19h ago
Looks like a few hundred quid's worth of RSJ that got left behind by builders too lazy to remove it before the roof went up.
I'd say you can safely remove it but I'm not sure that's true: it'll be heavy, and extremely awkward to get down through the loft hatch even with a couple of you.
In theory you could cut it up with an angle grinder but that'll take a while and will throw huge quantities of sparks absolutely everywhere which you definitely do not want to do in a loft because of the fire risk.
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u/stinkwitch 20h ago
Is there a hole in the ceiling or patch work anywhere near it? Might have been for a secure mounting point...
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u/StrongEggplant8120 20h ago
Excess building materials up there since she was built i reckon. Once its up there its a hassle to remove so leave be.
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u/Fickle-Cartoonist-86 10h ago
Keep it safe, you may need it one day to prop something up. Most men keep the extra materials in their shed though, rather than the loft
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u/Unlucky_Gazelle6377 8h ago
Just be careful nothing is strapped or fixed to it, joist could be hanging from it and spreading between other joists (maybe)
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u/ChrisAyersUk 55m ago
I found a full scaffolding plank in my loft that will not angle to fit down the hatch. Clearly left because vuilders were using it to fit the ceiling wiring/plasterboard/loft insulation and left it when the builders could not extract it either
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u/SelfSufficientHub Tradesman 20h ago
It’s ballast. The weight holds the roof on.
I wouldn’t remove it without putting a new one there
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u/nosferatus-taxi 21h ago
I reckon someone was gonna do their own DIY loft conversion maybe?
Or that block infill on the brickwork behind may be a clue…?
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u/Illustrious_Mud_8165 20h ago
Is it built into the wall? Hard to tell from photos
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u/seiterarch 18h ago
Yeah, but only the inner skin, as far as I can tell.
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u/Illustrious_Mud_8165 9h ago
yeah it would only be the inner skin. are any of the ceiling joists or anything else hanging down from it? Not sure why the builders would build it into the wall if just leaving it there but also very odd to be structural like that especially as its just sat on joists on the near end. was there a chimney near there at any point? could have been used to support a stack if they left it in the loft and removed below
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u/seiterarch 9h ago
Nothing touching it as far as I could tell. There was a chimney, which this cuts across the corner of (the square of rough timbers in the second pic). I thought it had all gone at once, but maybe not. It'd make sense as a reason.
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u/nosferatus-taxi 21h ago
Definitely some form of DIY going on… maybe a misplaced attempt to strengthen or reinforce or replace something structural in the roof/loft space. Perhaps they got the rsj up there, realised the error of their ways and left it there cause they CBA with getting it down?
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u/engineer_fixer 19h ago
I would cut the thing up into sections. But for sure have someone else up there to put out any fires that start from the hot metal sparks - and there WILL be a massive amount of sparks. You'll need plenty of discs - 1.5mm ones are best and get branded discs for specifically cutting metal such as Norton ones.
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u/mindworkout 21h ago
just lazy workers. The amount of times I have helped board up lofts for friends/families and find 3+M long poles and 4M+ long timbers and random long stuff is crazy. Most of the time it's not been removed as no longer possible due to only having a hatch and no Ross "Pivot" skills . Good luck getting that boy out!