My wife wants to expand the kitchen and take out the wall with the dining room. Our home is an early 50’s ranch that has a median load bearing wall, that runs the length of the house between the two external walls and supports the end of the ceiling joists not supported by the external walls.
The wall we would like to remove is not this wall. My gut feeling is that is is not a load bearing wall as it runs parallel to the ceiling joists. What are the rules for determining if a wall is load bearing or not?
I do appreciate any and all help. Bob
Replies
There aren't really any "rules". You just have to look at each situation and figure it out.
Looking UNDER the wall is a good starting point. If there's no beam under it, then it likely isn't load bearing.
Looking in the attic will also give you an indication. If there's nothing up there that appears to be siting on it, then it's probably not load bearing.
based on what you say, it is not load bearing with regards to vertical loads
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""What are the rules for determining if a wall is load bearing or not?""
It is a load bearing wall if it is bearing a load from above it.
That is the one and only rule .
that def discounts lateral and shear loads
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yes it does. Shear walls take care of those. I have never heard the term "load bearing wall" applied to a shear wall despite the fact that they do carry the lateral load.
They can't get your Goat if you don't tell them where it is hidden.
Here's a FAQ I wrote about bearing walls a few years ago. It needs to be revised to add shear walls. Either bearing or shear or both, you have to replace all the structural functions of a wall in order to remove it.
-- J.S.
How to identify bearing walls:
When somebody asks how to identify load bearing walls, it's usually
because they're thinking of removing a wall or cutting a big hole in
one. That can be serious business, not something that can be designed
adequately by using a FAQ from the internet. The following discussion
may be useful for the preliminary speculation phase of such a project,
but don't rely on it for anything more.
Removing a load bearing wall is not impossible, but it is more
expensive. Often much more expensive. It will require some sort of
substitute support for the weight it carried, usually a beam. Often
this beam will have to be large enough that it extends downward from
the ceiling fairly far. On a top floor, you may be able to hide it in
the attic, and hang the ceiling joists from the side of it, or even
from the bottom. But often the ugly beam sticking down, which always
looks like you took out a wall, defeats the architectural purpose of
removing the wall in the first place.
You'll also have to provide adequate support under the ends of the
beam, because the load that was formerly distributed along the length
of the wall is now concentrated there. This load has to be supported
all the way down to the ground.
The official code definition of a bearing wall is any wall that
supports 100 pounds or more per foot of length, and any masonry wall
that supports any additional masonry above its ceiling level. That's
not particularly practical or helpful, since there's no instrument to
measure the weight on the top plate of a wall.
In general, you have to look at what the wall supports, and what
supports it. Walls that are parallel to the joists above are usually
but not always non-bearing. On my top floor, I have a wall parallel
to the joists that supports the rafter tails of a decorative roof
section. On the top floor, always look in the attic to see if the
wall in question carries any roof load. Then look to see if it
supports ceiling joists. If the joist tails rest on a wall, it's
almost always bearing. I have one exception to that upstairs, where
the ceiling joist tails rest on a non-bearing 2x3 wall that was the
partition between two closets, each 10 feet by 27 inches. On each
side, the real bearing walls are only 27 inches from this partition
wall. They form the sides of the stairwell.
Taking that idea a bit farther, you may want to analyse the whole
house, figuring out from the top down how the weight of all the
materials and contents are supported all the way down to the ground.
That's the way engineers design structures, from the top down. They
have to do it that way, because they can't design any part of the
structure until they know the weight of the stuff it supports.
In the past, certainly in the 1920's, building codes used to allow
2x3's for non-bearing walls. Then for quite a while 2x4's were the
minimum for all walls. I know that started prior to 1971, but I'm
not sure how far prior. Now with the 2005 code, 2x3's are allowed
again for non-bearing walls. It's possible that you'll find a load
bearing 2x3 wall if bootleg remodeling removed a nearby bearing wall.
For ground floor walls, look in the crawl space or basement. A
bearing wall perpendicular to the joists should be no more than one
joist depth away from some sort of support -- a girder or cripple
wall. That's a code requirement for all walls, not just on the ground
floor. So, if your joists are 2x10's (actually 9 1/4"), and a wall is
10 inches away from the nearest support, it's probably not supposed to
be bearing. The exceptions are if the original design was done by an
engineer, or the building is old enough to pre-date that code.
In old houses, bearing walls parallel to the joists below may have no
extra support. In newer construction, they'll usually have a joist or
two under them. The best practice is two joists with space between
them for utilities to run into the wall without hacking up the
structure. As always, beware of bootleg jobs that may have
transferred loads to walls that legally shouldn't carry them.
The tough part comes when you have three or more stories, and you want
to work on the in-between floors. First, you should start from the
attic and work down, because any bearing wall up there has to be
supported by bearing walls all the way down. Then look in the crawl
or basement, and work your way up. As with the crawl space, the max
is one joist depth away from floor to floor, unless it's an engineered
design or an old building. Next you may need to do some exploratory
demolition of the ceiling to see what's on top of the wall in
question. Again you're looking for joist tails, this time floor joist
tails.
Finally, even if a wall appears to be non-bearing, if it's
perpendicular to the joists above, you have to determine the size of
those joists and the new distance they'll span if the wall is removed.
If there are no walls or roof load supported by those joists, you can
look in the span tables to see if the result will pass code. If they
support other parts of the structure, engineering calculations are
necessary.
Most people at this point should hire a structural engineer. If you
don't want to hire an engineer, get some engineering books from the
library. Unless you have a very strong technical and math background,
that kind of light reading will probably convince you to pay somebody
who already knows this stuff. Even if you have the ability to learn
enough for a simple job, an experienced engineer's second opinion may
well provide you with a more cost-effective solution and save you more
than the engineer's fee.
Most jurisdictions will require a licensed engineer's wet stamp on plans
before they issue a permit for structural work. So even if you could
learn enough to do it yourself, your local building department may not
accept it because they don't have the resources to check your work.
What you may be able to do for yourself is measure and draw. If you
can make good accurate measurements and drawings of what you have and
how you want to change it, you may find an engineer who will do your
job from your drawings, without the expense of a site visit. Some will
even do simple jobs via fax.
A general contractor or rough carpenter might also be able to give you
an expert opinion on whether a wall is bearing or not. Please don't ask
for a "free estimate" if you don't intend to hire someone for the job.
The fair thing to do is pay them their hourly rate. That might be about
half what an engineer would charge for a site visit.
Also, non-bearing is merely a legal term used in codes. It doesn't
mean that the wall in question has no structural role. Gravity
doesn't care whether we call a wall bearing or not. After it's gone,
the floor above may be less solid feeling, even though it still passes
code.
(Bearing Wall FAQ revised March 12, 2003)