At what point do you reach out to a civil engineer for a project? Is it only when there’s a load-bearing wall/beam, or structural requirement (like foundation alteration)?
There are 2 main types of engineers
- Residential
- Civil
Civil engineers build bridges and skyscrapers.
To deal with load bearing walls a residential engineer is the person to determine load values. If you just need to see if a wall is load bearing prior to removing it, a contractor would be able to inform you on that.
Ah, thanks for the clarification on residential vs civil engineer! So it’s really only to determine load values and, in the case of needing to alter a load-bearing support, how to re-position that?
Hi Zach,
Yes, if you were building from scratch say an addition or a new home a residential engineer would have to determine the loads to carry the roof, snow loads wind loads etc.
But you don’t need an engineer to to verify if a wall is load bearing. The best way is to get a copy of your blueprints for the home, on them it will specify if a wall is load bearing or not. If you are not comfortable reading blue prints a contractor can take a look and answer that question in a few minutes.
If prints are not available he/she will go into the attic space to see how the rafters lay?
If there is a second story above the wall in question the only other way is to remove the drywall and take a look.