How To Tell Load Bearing Wall From Attic

If you don t have a basement or have a finished ceiling take a look at your home s structure from the attic.

How to tell load bearing wall from attic. When joists trusses are perpendicular to the wall and bear o n the top of the wall that wall is bearing wall. It all depends on the shape of the house its size and the number of floors it has. 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. An example of a load bearing wall call be seen on the right.

Any part of a load bearing wall that is removed must be replaced with a suitable structural support such as a beam and or columns to bear the same load that was supported by the wall. How to recognize a load bearing wall from the attic. Finding load bearing walls is not always an easy task. Use the following steps to identify a load bearing wall.

An example of a non load bearing partition wall can be seen on the left. This is also true when looking in the attic. Even without a second story the roof weighs a lot and load bearing walls bear most of the. If you have remodeling plans that include removing or altering a wall you must determine whether the wall is load bearing or non load bearing.

Every house uses load bearing walls to stabilize the structure and support the weight of the home above. Without having the plans for the house on hand it is not always easy to recognize whether or not a wall is load bearing. Grab your blueprints a great place to start is by digging out the original blueprints if they re available. During home renovations non load bearing walls can be made to bear weight and vice versa.

In the attic look down at the ceiling joists and ask yourself these. Here is a checklist to tell if the wall you want to take down is load bearing. If you don t have access to your attic you can always look at your. Also notice how the non load bearing walls from the picture above are parallel to the wall framing in the picture below.

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.