Every house uses load bearing walls to stabilize the structure and support the weight of the home above.
Attic bearing wall.
During home renovations non load bearing walls can be made to bear weight and vice versa.
If you don t have access to your attic you can always look at your.
Even without a second story the roof weighs a lot and.
A load bearing wall transfers load all the way down to the building s foundation.
If a wall doesn t have any walls posts or other supports directly above it it s far less likely that it s load bearing.
Sizing up the situation.
If the wall is located directly under the attic you can go up there to study the positions of the beams and joists.
Also notice how the non load bearing walls from the picture above are parallel to the wall framing in the picture below.
Load bearing walls support the weight of a floor or roof structure above and are so named because they bear a load.
To confuse matters further some types of construction such as post and beam or steel girder may not have any bearing walls at all except for the outside walls.
Load bearing walls cross roof beams in a perpendicular direction.
How to find a load bearing wall.
If there s an attic above the load bearing wall you want to remove and the roof is framed with trusses you can t bury a beam in the ceiling and will have to leave it exposed.
For instance hanging or cutting ceiling joists adding stairways and adding attic rooms usually require the changing of non load bearing walls to load bearing walls.
This is also true when looking in the attic.
Get help lifting them.
Adding a room in an attic can change the entire load bearing status of the walls below.
Lvl beams are heavier than standard lumber.
By contrast a non load bearing wall sometimes called a partition wall is responsible only for holding up itself.
Ceiling or floor joists that are spliced over the wall or end at the wall mean the wall is bearing.
Using this technique you ll get a better idea of the location of the load bearing walls in your house.
Walls that are stacked may be load bearing.
Climb up to the attic.
A load bearing wall is any wall that holds up the weight of the structure above and the people furniture supported by that structure.
In some cases you may not be able to tell for sure whether a wall is bearing.
The floors above roof structure people and furniture are the loads that the wall has to support.
Look for these from the attic.
