I'm house hunting and I just saw one which is perfect except that one bedroom is much too small. There appears to be nothing in the way of pipes or wires in the wall between the rooms, and based on my amateur evaluation, it doesn't seem like a supporting wall, either. On the home improvement nightmare scale, where ripping up the basement floor to put in drainage is a
10, and replacing a lightswitch is a 1, where does this sort of job fall?
What reasons do you think your "amateur evaluations" are based upon? If you're in doubt, get ahold of an engineer with some experience in this field. If this qualified person gives you the go-ahead, the job is a "3". Tom Someday, it'll all be over....
Old age (mine), a trip through the attic, and intuition.
Obviously, an engineer is going to inspect the house before I sign on the dotted line. The engineer who inspected my last house said HE wouldn't buy a house without having a DIFFERENT guy inspect it. Too much eagerness and emotional involvement on the part of the buyer.
Anywhere from 3 - 12. It depends on what you are working with.
For me, it'll be a 12, then. I get no respect from houses. There will be a corpse from an old murder hidden in the wall, along with several hornet nests and a network of wires, lead pipes and asbestos. I just know it.
"Assuming" that you are correct about it not being a load bearing wall:
Removing existing wall: Not difficult in and of itself. Create lots of mess which can be difficult to contain and clean up.
Repairing the adjoining walls: Not difficult, but can require considerable skill/knowledge to completely eliminate evidence of the 'prior' wall. For example, the gap in base molding where the original wall was.
Repairing the floor where wall had been: Tricky depending on type of floor and floor covering. If planning on recarpeting after wall removal, no problem???
Repairing ceiling where wall had been: Same comment as to the adjoining walls.
Sort of depends on your skill level, tolerance of "mess" while in progress, time available to do the work (don't underestimate this aspect!), and of course your budget.
Good luck!
evaluation,
Assume there are no structural problems. These are some of the things to look at where the wall is removed: The ceiling height must meet. The wall surfaces must meet The floor surfaces must meet. The windows in two rooms will be seen together in one room. The doors into the two rooms will now give entrance to one room.
This might add up to nothing or present problems in your specific case.
Tom Baker
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