how do i know if a beam in my house is a support beam?

Question

I'm thinking about tearing out a wall that surrounds a chimney and don't know if i should because it may be providing support. is there a way to find out for sure? In the attic maybe?

Answer 1

look in the attic if there is rafters or joists sitting on the wall it is a bearing wall and you will need to support it with some type of header or beam. you will have to get that engineered in order to see how much beam you need to support the weight

Answer 2

You have two different types of walls 1st one is called a load bearing and the 2nd is a non-load bearing and if the house was framed correctly, a load bearing wall will have two top plates, but yeah check in your attic and see if the bottom cord of the truss, if that is what you have, if not and you have a rafter style roof with a bottom cord running from one side of the house to the other, what you will have to do is if it's a bearing wall is first, you will have to build a dummy wall going the same direction as the wall you are wanting to tear out, about 16 inches away from the other wall, at this point you can tear out the other wall, the second thing is you are going to have to put in a beam up in your attic to span across to catch the next trusses on either side, make sure you double the beam up, once you figure where the beam is going to go, attach a double hanger to each bottom cord, cut the bottom cord back enough to allow the beam to fit in there but before you put the beam in make sure you put a single hanger on both of the bottom cords of the one you cut, now slide the beam in place, nail it up now take the hangers that you had put on the bottom cord of the truss you had cut and slide them over to the beam and nail them up, after all that is done you can remove the dummy wall you had built, good luck with your project.

Answer 3

Things to look for that usually indicate that a wall is load bearing: 1) It will run perpendicular to the joists.
2) The floors above and below it will have structures (walls or columns) in the same position.

If you have an unfinished basement, go down and look up at the first level floor joists. A main beam would run perpendicular to the joists and usually have columns under it.

Certain structural materials can carry enough load to eliminate the need for posts in the basement. So the safest way is to draw a rough frame sketch, with good dimensions. List joist size, type, and spacing. Find a lumberyard with a staff construction engineer. Usually, they'll take a quick look at something like this for free, if they think you'll be buying supplies.

Answer 4

I would assume that any "support" structure in your house was put there for a reason. It is not superfluous and you should hire a professional to tell you for sure. You wouldn't want half of your home to come caving in on you!

Answer 5

If it attends weekly meetings to talk about it's own problems and the problems of others...then it's probably a support beam.

Seriously, just ask a carpentar to take a look to be certain. You don't want to do anything to jeopardize your insurance coverage, so use someone who is licensed, bonded, and insured to work in your area.

Answer 6

To see if it is a load bearing wall, ask yourself first if it runs PERPENDICULAR to the roof trusses. If it does not and runs PARRALLEL, then it is not load bearing wall. **Now I am not a professional, but this is what a professional contractor told me when we did the same thing.**

Answer 7

Take it out and see what falls.

Answer 8

check in the basement to see if their our any supports

Answer 9

knock it down and if ur house falls down then u know it was