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We're looking at a house to potentially buy. It currently has a single story extension that wraps around one corner of the house (the living room) to create quite a long thin L shaped sun room.
The sun room is about 6 feet wide with a felt flat roof. Either side of the corner, in the living room is a window on one side and a double patio door on the other which allows plenty of light through to the sun room.
The question is if we wanted to open up living room walls to have the whole thing open plan would we need a pillar in the corner where the original corner of the house was pre extension?
Is there a way to do it without a pillar and if so will this drastically increase the costs?
Firstly you need to check if there is planning permission in place. If it was built as a conservatory without planning then you may need planning to turn it into a habitable room. If it's been there a while you might just happily get away with it too. Structural work will need building regs, as will plumbing and electrics.
You can do it without a pillar but as you suspect it will add cost. You'll need some hefty steels. These steels will need a good bearing which will likely mean uprating the existing extension wall (and maybe footings). It'll be a good upgrade so you should see the spend covered by a rise in value.
Is there a way to do it without a pillar and if so will this drastically increase the costs?
Yes and most definitely yes.
If I was contemplating it I'd also be wondering if the added space was really worth the cost? 6' wide sounds likely to have been a cheaper extension to me unless there's external space limitations. Would the money be better spent on a new extension in place of the old smaller space?
also if built as a conservatory/ add on room originally then it won't be compliant in terms of thermal performance. If you open it to the living room and make it a habitable room you will then potentially have to upgrade the external envelope of the extension ie upgrade the walls, roof and windows. plus the structural costs of supporting one corner of the original house. Spk to a local architect who specialises in domestic work and you will get a clear idea of what might be possible and the likely costs.
Good point from deepreddave. It might be obvious to tweak what is there but it may be better/cheaper/easier to rip down the extension and build something bigger while leaving the house intact.
The thermal question is a good one to discuss with Building Control. We had to undertake calcs and make compensating improvements around the house when adding an extension which involved removing an old bay window to create one larger space. That's the bad news, the good news is there's a solution to most problems.