Bearing Wall For Attic

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.

Bearing wall for attic.

If it is a small home usually roof framing is in one direction only north south or east west. Load bearing walls cross roof beams in a perpendicular direction. August 19 2020 at 2 23 pm. Look for these from the attic.

If you don t have access to your attic you can always look at your. This is also true when looking in the attic. Walls that are stacked may be load bearing. If you re unsure ask a building contractor or your local building inspector for advice.

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. How to find a load bearing wall. 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. 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.

Also notice how the non load bearing walls from the picture above are parallel to the wall framing in the picture below. In some cases you may not be able to tell for sure whether a wall is bearing. Ceiling or floor joists that are spliced over the wall or end at the wall mean the wall is bearing. If the wall is located directly under the attic you can go up there to study the positions of the beams and joists.

Climb up to the attic. Using this technique you ll get a better idea of the location of the load bearing walls in your house. Find these by measuring or by studying a floor plan of your house. By contrast a non load bearing wall sometimes called a partition wall is responsible only for holding up itself.

Load bearing walls support the weight of a floor or roof structure above and are so named because they bear a load. Every house uses load bearing walls to stabilize the structure and support the weight of the home above. 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. Even without a second story the roof weighs a lot and.