how can you tell that a wall inside a house is aload bearing wall?

Answer 1

A wall running perpendicular to the Ceiling joists/rafters is often load bearing.

Answer 2

If you have a crawl space, there will be concrete pads and some sort of post holding up the floor under this wall if load bearing. A concrete slab foundation can be more difficult, may check to see if door openings have a large header with a stud finder. Perhaps call a few remodeling contractors for free estimates on the work you are thinking of doing and they will tell for free, don't actually have to hire them.

Steve is also incorrect, you can have trusses that are supported by an interior wall but will not necessarily have braces (bracing is part of the truss). If the roof load is supported by this interior wall, you will have supports in the crawl space.

Answer 3

From a Chartered Engineer

A load-bearing wall can be taking the load from any one (or more) of three things, a wall in the storey above, ceiling joists or part of the roof structure. You need to check each of these indpendently and if the wall is supporting any of these, it is load-bearing.

If an ANY doubt, get a structural Engineer to check it. Assuming your house is worth £loads, dont risk ruining it to save a few hundred quid.

Answer 4

Go to the Web and ask for the Definition of Load Bearing Walls. I believe the answer is not dificult,bur hard to explane to a non builder. Ask yourself is the wall bearing a load, from the Earth below to the roof above

Answer 5

Oy, what idiotic answers.

Go in the attic if you can, do the ceiling joists not run from end of the house to the other end? If so they rest on a support wall. Leave that wall alone. If they don't "break" on the wall it is not load bearing.

Answer 6

Where did all these stupid answers come from . Here is the right answer.... Lift the manhole cover and check the roof framing / structure if they are trusses, spanning from external wall to opposite external wall, then you can bet your last middie, that is a non load bearing wall, then.. wait for it!! shine your torch on the wall, whhhoopps, forgot to take the torch up the manhole.. now .. check out the wall , if there are some timbers going from the wall to the roof structure,, like as in a brace or 2 or 3 or more then it is a loadbearing wall because the roof load is partly bearing on that wall... hence load bearing wall. there ya go now you have it and i'm back to my beer.

Answer 7

if on ground floor go upstairs and if there is a wall above it then its load bearing ..if on first floor you need to go into loft ..see if any joist or walls are on top there might even be purlin props..on the ground floor you will allso need to check the the floorjoist upstairs dont sit on the wall you want to remove ..if they do you will need to insert a lintol ..and borrow some acrow props and a couple of planks to support floors while you fit lintols

Answer 8

Leave it to an expert, many people have come to this conclusion the hard way. Mess with the structure of the house and it could cost you, not only the repair, but also a big drop in the price of your house if you ever wish to sell it.

Answer 9

all houses are different even though the load bearing basics are the same. someone who knows whats going on should look at your house before something terrrible happens.

Answer 10

simply look at your floorboards....
say they run from behind you to in front of you then your beams will run from left load-bearing wall to the right load-bearing wall.
simple and saves you climbing into small places.