How To Identify if a Wall is Load Bearing or not

hi Shannon here from host improvements comm I'm back today and I'm going to try to explain to you how to determine whether a wall in your home is load-bearing or non load-bearing this is a common issue especially if you're doing a renovation you maybe want to open up a room by taking a wall out to try to make things you know more of a 1 wide open area in this case we're going to actually be doing that exact same thing in this home we want to take this wall out that's right now dividing the front living room from the kitchen and open this all up into one big one big room now the first things to to kind of look at is structurally even the age of your house can tell you quite a bit if your house is let's say basically post-1960 for example chances are this wall would have been load-bearing because you would have probably rafters instead of trusses trusses are designed in a factory built in a factory and they're designed to span usually wall to wall you know great from outside to outside in a typical home where a rafter is generally built right on site when they constructed the house so it could have could be done a number of different ways but with a rafter a lot of times the the ceiling joists we're in a single level house right now so if this was built and rafters to see there would be ceiling joists that would come across and if you looked up in the attic move the insulation out of the way you maybe have two ceiling members kind of lapped side-by-side you know one going back this way one going back that way and they'd be sitting on this wall or on a beam so that's one way to kind of identify that it would be load-bearing because these they may be nailed together but they aren't structurally bonded where a truss that bottom cord they'll be butted together they could still be sitting on this wall but they there'd be butted together and there'll be some metal plates that are compressed onto each side giving them strength and you'll see those metal plates as well the gussets at all the other intersections where the different web pieces of the the truss are put together another situation you might have it could be a two-story house and again a lot of times the floor joists for the second-story if you're working on the first storey the second storey again they're going to be lapped right at the wall they could be butted even together at the wall but they aren't likely going to have any kind of structural member attached to them to keep them from wanting to drop once that support comes out from underneath them the other situation would be in a basement so same thing you've got a basement of you look up in the ceiling obviously you've got your main floor floor joists up there and again they could be sitting on walls overlapping butted together it could be a beam one way or you know one way or the other they're holding the structure above it up other things to look for is point loads if you get a wall open and you actually see a post built like whether it be metal or wood post where there's two or three framing members fastened together forming a post that could be a sign that there's a point load or a beam or something up above that is resting on that that post but so those are some of the things you can kind of look at to start with so if you come across something in your investigation or even maybe you've removed the drywall from the wall figured you're alright you started going and you come across anything that just isn't quite adding up and it's making you question your you're thinking best thing to do is contact somebody that can help you that has the the knowledge to be able to tell you for sure whether you're dealing with a load-bearing a non load-bearing wall that could be an engineer could even be somebody that's just been in the construction trade a good long time they they should be able to look at it and be able to tell you pretty quickly so just be sure that you're careful if it is a load-bearing wall and you just start hacking it out you're going to cause some issues you're going to cause whatever's above you to want to come down it may not collapse right then but it could want to come down and start sagging or causing other issues and that sort of thing so yeah just have a good look at what you've got I mean I know it's hard to tell anything once you when you still have the drywall up especially on a wall but just do as much investigating ahead of time as you can ask asking people questions that sort of thing look around the attic look under the floor all those sorts of things to just look for any signs that that are telling you that it is load-bearing and not just a just not a decorative wall purposely put there to just abide rooms off so okay so hopefully that gave you a few pointers on things to look for when determining if you've got a load-bearing wall or not like I said one of the other videos we're going to have is actually removing this wall so you'll be able to see a little bit of what we went through to to do it thanks a lot for watching and you can check out our form on the website you can check out all the other videos we have and the articles on the website as well you

Channel: HouseImprovements

Views: 1,444,289

Keywords: Load-bearing Wall, How-to (Media Genre), wall, load, bearing, non, interior, house, home, reno, renovation, demo, remove, take, down, Interior Design (Project Role), removal, structural, structure, Construction, Repair, Installation, Out, identify, tell, how-to, how, to, tips, upgrade, improve, improvement, truss, joist, engineer

Id: nJSsRVoy_U0

Length: 5min 38sec (338 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 17 2014