Bearing Wall For Attic

If the wall is located directly under the attic you can go up there to study the positions of the beams and joists.

Bearing wall for attic.

Adding a room in an attic can change the entire load bearing status of the walls below. If it is a small home usually roof framing is in one direction only north south or east west. During home renovations non load bearing walls can be made to bear weight and vice versa. 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.

Ceiling or floor joists that are spliced over the wall or end at the wall mean the wall is bearing. Find these by measuring or by studying a floor plan of your house. If you don t have access to your attic you can always look at your. Walls that are stacked may be load bearing.

How to find a load bearing wall. By contrast a non load bearing wall sometimes called a partition wall is responsible only for holding up itself. Even without a second story the roof weighs a lot and. 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.

Using this technique you ll get a better idea of the location of the load bearing walls in your house. Load bearing walls support the weight of a floor or roof structure above and are so named because they bear a load. In some cases you may not be able to tell for sure whether a wall is bearing. This is also true when looking in the attic.

A load bearing wall almost always has ceiling or floor framing running perpendicular to it. Every house uses load bearing walls to stabilize the structure and support the weight of the home above. Look for these from the attic. The best way to tell if a wall is load bearing is to go in the attic ceiling space to see if there is any framing joists rafers trusses supported by that wall.

Load bearing walls cross roof beams in a perpendicular direction. If you re unsure ask a building contractor or your local building inspector for advice. If it s a load bearing wall the inspector may help size the beam or recommend that you have a structural engineer or architect size it. Climb up to the attic.