How do i know if a wall is load bearing?
Question:
Answers:
knock it down and if your house collapse then it was a load bearing wall.
What wall?
a load bearing wall have the beams resting on them, a separation wall, just divides a room.
If the wall is solid, brick fo instance then it is a loadbearing wall. If the wall is just plasterboard and of timber framing inside, then it is NOT. Houses have been known to collapse because a cowboy builder has not followed the rules, if in doubt call in an expert
the best and normal way to tell is look at the room. the joist's will normally span the shortest distance from one wall to another. so the shortest distance will be where the load is bearing.
use a combination detector volt/metal /stud and run it a inch away from the ceiling,going across the room,when it beeps,keep going till it stops,IE from one side to the other side of the room and about 6,7,8 inches across ,then flush on the wall going top to bottom,would indicate a rsj frame is present therefore it is a load bearing structure [R.S.J= Re-inforced steel joist] or a steel girders same thing.
So many stupid answers . . . If you can get into the attic look and see if ceiling joists are supported by this wall. If there are splices or if the joists are nailed to the wall it will be load bearing. If the joists ride over the wall and not structurally nailed to the wall it is not.
i agree some right idiots here.
Look at your floor boards in the room, your joists they sit on will run at 90degrees to them. If this points towards your wall, then your wall is supporting the floor above it.
you need to do this is both rooms.
plus you need to consider if anything has been changed since the house was built that might add to this.
eem,you might be suprised how the load of a roof and upper floors can be distributed around a building. So, its down to experience and knowing how buidlings work. Even some studded walls support upper floors so be careful.
You cannot just rely on the direction of floorboards as in some answers, there is so much more to it than that.
Can't really give a cut-n-dried answer because, unless you know the complete history of the building, you don't know what other people have done before you - who it so say they followed the rules ?
examples:
I do up about 3 houses a year and in the recent past i've found:
a staircase hang off floorboards
A upper floor supported on 75mm CLS studwork
A stone wall built upstairs ON a wooden floor to support a purling above it, no support underneath.
An upper set of floor joists being held UP by the floorboards above them
A door frame support a brick wall which in turn supported a perling which was cantilevered off a wooden beam.
All fixable, but you have to be sure before you get the sledge hammer and acroprops out
I've also had the opposite - 9 inch square by 20 foot oak beams that were doing nothing at all, took them out with no problems
"A" frames That were holding nothing up -were not even touching purlings. They had no bottom stretcher so they could push the wall out if the purling ever dropped.
etc, etc.
Hi
Depending on what is above the wall it wil;l tell you if its load Bearing usually the walls are only load Bearing if they are in the middle of the room above because in this case it is load bearing.
Cheers NOSH XX
Hello,
Big Mustache is right..if people just want to submit a smart *** answer, they ought to go somewhere else. The same goes for people who don't know what they are talking about, particularly when it involves something as serious (and potentially dangerous) as the structural integrity of your house. You need to consult with a professional (licensed contractor, engineer, architect) before modifying any wall in your home whether it is one story, two, or more.
if it's a plasterboard and batten wall it's not load bearing
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