How to decide of a timber wall is load bearing?

[petesouthwest]

We have a timber wall in the kitchen that we would like to remove, but how do I know whether it is load bearing or not? Its a 3 story house built in 81, ground floor is garage and front door, 1st floor is kitchen and lounge. The wall forms a small passage between the kitchen and lounge, where stairs come from the first floor. I've attempted to represent it here:

outside __________________

Kitchen

________

________ __

Lounge

_________________ outside

The lounge is open plan with the stairs leading to the second floor. It was suggested that the joists for the second floor, might be running verticaly in my diagram, using the kitchen/lounge dividing walls as support, as the joists can not run horisontally in the lounge due to there being an opening in the lounge ceiling for the stairs to run through. However, looking just at the top of the stairs on the second floor the joists appear to be running horisontally, ie parralel to the dividing walls.

Is there anyway I can easily check if the dividing wall is structural?

Many thanks P

[Roger Mills]

What is *under* the wall? If it *is* load-bearing, the load will have to be transmitted down to something solid at ground level - so the wall be sitting on top of another wall - or at least on an RSJ.

What is above the wall? Could it be supporting a floor, another wall, the roof (indirectly)? You need to get a thorough understanding of how everything above *is* supported before you can be sure that this wall doesn't provide a vital part of it.

If in doubt, consult a structural engineer. You should be able to get an expert opinion for £100 or so.

[Owain]

I think that rather more relevant may be the fact that the wall is providing fire separation between the kitchen and the staircase in a 3 storey house. If this is the case it isn't even worth getting plans drawn for the necessary Building Regulations application, as it won't be permitted to remove the wall.

An informal chat with Building Control first may be very useful.

Owain

[petesouthwest]

There is a block wall under the wall.

above the wall is the bathroom door, small section of wall and then airing cupboard door. But the second floor joists, that I would have expected to be perpendicular to the timber wall, actually run parrallel to it. Would the wall be structural if it only has one joist above it?

I'm assuming structural walls take the load of several joists?

[adder1969]

When you say timber do you mean it's a timber stud wall with plasterboard facing? These are rarely structural walls although I'm lead to believe that they are in some cases. If there's a joist

*directly* above the wall you need to work out whether the wall is holding it up.

[petesouthwest]

Seemingly

there is a possibility too.

P

[adder1969]

But it says "Wall A is constructed in plasterboard and timber. This would not be strong enough, under normal construction methods...." but of course if you've got a hidden structural support contained within you can't go knocking that out too.