I have a house built in 1989 with engineered trusses. I want to remove 5' between the living room and kitchen.
Question:There is a 7' section to the left of where I want to remove the wall that does not have any support under it. Would I be able to remove this 5' section.
Answers:
It is rather likely that removing a wall under your trussed roof will not be a problem. Generally, no support is needed in the center of the truss span.
Having said that, there are exceptions, and there is no rule saying that the truss designer could not have designed the trusses to use an interior wall as a bearing point.
If you have the blueprints for your home, you should be able to tell from there if the wall is a bearing wall or not.
Failing that, the only way to be certain would be to have a look at the trusses. If there is a diagonal or vertical web (the pieces that run between the top of the truss and the bottom) meeting the bottom chord of the truss directly above the wall there is a chance that the wall is needed and you should have a structural engineer look at it. If none of the webs meet the bottom chord above the wall, you should be fine.
I very strongly suggest that you involve and engineer in this discussion, that is one in addition to me, as you fact the possibility of catastrophic failure if you do this wrong. Either get a consulting structural engineer from the yellow pages or go to truss supplier, they might engineer if for you if you buy trusses from them.
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