Extending a RSJ

[Jonleeper]

When we uncovered the external wall, in the 1950's semi I am extending, we discovered a small RSJ running accross the room. The room is the corner of the detached end and has two internal walls to complete it. The RSJ is about 35mm x 75mm and runs from the internal deviding wall, on the flat wall side of the chimney, to the external wall. This effectivly splits the room in half and the floor joists simply fit into the web of the RSJ. This reduces the outside joist length (fixed to the other external wall) to a bit less than 2m and the internal one to about 1.8m. This is now supported by the, considerably bigger, steel inserted into the first external wall. As I want to take out the chimney from the room on the other side of the internal wall I did some investigation and this too has a RSJ running into the front of the chimney. If I take out the chimney the RSJ will be about 250mm short of resting on the deviding wall and thus the floor will fall down! Is there a, realtivly, easy way of extending the RSJ to reach the deviding wall or do I have to leave the ground floor part of the chimney in place. I have not got the funds or time to remove the RSJ and replace.

many thanks,

Jon