Attic Bearing Wall

Once you ve reached your house s lowest point look for walls whose beams go directly into the concrete foundation.

Attic bearing wall.

Note the direction the roof ridge runs. If your wall conforms to the situation shown you can be sure it s load bearing. Look at the structure of the house and ask the following questions. Load bearing walls cross roof beams in a perpendicular direction.

Using this technique you ll get a better idea of the location of the load bearing walls in your house. Exterior walls are almost always load bearing. Walls that are stacked may be load bearing. The floors above roof structure people and furniture are the loads that the wall has to support.

How to find a load bearing wall 1. If the wall in question is on the second floor look to see if there is a. If you have an unfinished. A load bearing wall is any wall that holds up the weight of the structure above and the people furniture supported by that structure.

Enter the basement and inspect the. In a multi storey building load bearing walls usually line up with each other from floor to floor but this is not always the case. If the wall is located directly under the attic you can go up there to study the positions of the beams and joists. This is also true when looking in the attic.

Posts on either side of the openings support the beams. A load bearing wall transfers load all the way down to the building s foundation. Some bearing walls are easy to spot see the central wall in figure b. 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.

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. Look for these from the attic. What s a mother to do. Where there are windows and doors the walls include beams or headers spanning across the tops of the openings.

Load bearing walls typically run in. So how do you know whether a wall is load bearing. Look inside the attic if possible to identify the direction in which the rafters or joists travel. Climb up to the attic.

Adding a room in an attic can change the entire load bearing status of the walls below. Additionally most home s exterior walls are load bearing. Examine the roof structure from outside. Exterior walls are walls that form the perimeter or outer footprint of a house.