Attic Bearing Wall

Some bearing walls are easy to spot see the central wall in figure b.

Attic bearing wall.

Walls that are stacked may be load bearing. 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. Exterior walls are almost always load bearing. What s a mother to do.

Enter the basement and inspect the. If the wall in question is on the second floor look to see if there is a. Climb up to the attic. Adding a room in an attic can change the entire load bearing status of the walls below.

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. Ceiling or floor joists that are spliced over the wall or end at the wall mean the wall is bearing. Additionally most home s exterior walls are load bearing. Note the direction the roof ridge runs.

Using this technique you ll get a better idea of the location of the load bearing walls in your house. Look inside the attic if possible to identify the direction in which the rafters or joists travel. Look at the structure of the house and ask the following questions. Where there are windows and doors the walls include beams or headers spanning across the tops of the openings.

Look for these from the attic. If the wall is located directly under the attic you can go up there to study the positions of the beams and joists. You should see this at the foundation level whether wood. A load bearing wall is any wall that holds up the weight of the structure above and the people furniture supported by that structure.

The important thing to remember is that if a wall is load bearing it is transferring that load to something underneath it. So how do you know whether a wall is load bearing. Examine the roof structure from outside. Exterior walls are walls that form the perimeter or outer footprint of a house.

The floors above roof structure people and furniture are the loads that the wall has to support. This is also true when looking in the attic. If you have an unfinished. How to find a load bearing wall 1.

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. Load bearing walls typically run in. Once you ve reached your house s lowest point look for walls whose beams go directly into the concrete foundation. Load bearing walls cross roof beams in a perpendicular direction.