It’s very hard to tell if your walls are closed. If you have an attic space, usually the load bearing walls are where the ceiling joists overlap. The best thing to do is have a professional General Contractor come by and take a look at it.
The best way would be to obtain your original plans and consult a professional to let you know. It can be very dangerous to remove a wall without a professional opinion. Great news! We can help. Let us know if we can do anything to help you with your home improvement.
If you move it, your house will collapse. For example, a wall that has a window (an exterior wall) is a load bearing wall. A structural wall actually carries the weight of your house, from the roof and upper floors, all the way to the foundation. (The weight that is being transferred down at any given point in the house is called the “load”, hence “load-bearing walls.”)
A wall separating the closet from a hall is not a load bearing wall. Pay attention to what the wall is connecting to.
Best and safest solution is to ask an engineer or architect. If this is wooden construction and the interior wall was built using 2x6 studs, there is a good chance that this is a bearing wall. In older houses where the real 2x4 were used, it is difficult to say without checking what is on the top of it. If this is a continuous floor joists ruing perpendicularly to the wall it is probably non bearing but if you see end of the joists resting on the wall that is definitely a bearing wall. There are so many factors involved I would ask professional to take a look before you take the wall down.
Hi John,
There are a few ways to identify a load bearing wall. Most often, any wall that runs perpendicular to floor joists will be a load bearing wall, while those that lay parallel to floor joists are not. Another visual cue of load bearing walls are those that end in large posts or columns. If you have any doubt at all as to which walls in your home are load bearing walls, consult with a professional prior to doing any modifying.
Hope this helped.
Amit Singh
Egnatia Construction Inc.
To be safest ask (pay) an engineer; it costs $750 to $1500 in general. And be safe - even if you are assured by an “experienced” person, friend, etc., get a professional’s opinion… better to be safe then sorry
When trying to determine if a wall is load bearing, you may or may not have to use the home’s blueprints. But if not, if the ceiling or the floor joist are running perpendicular to the wall, that is a indication that the wall is load bearing. This can be looked at if someone goes into the attic to see the joist layout.
Check the joists. For any building contractor this is Course 101A.
Now this can be a tricky one and there are a few ways to accomplish this.
- get a copy of your homes blueprints load bearing walls are listed
- take a look in the attic and see if your rafters/truss’s terminate on the wall in question
- Have a contractor take a look at it for you.
- have an engineer take a look to determine it’s status.
Remember, never remove a wall that you are not completely certain is NOT load bearing!