Knocking down internal walls - supporting wall or not?

not a lot. Itsreaplcing te support that is trickier.

you look to see what's resting on it.

On Friday 17 May 2013 15:19 paulfoel wrote in uk.d-i-y:

Clues are: Is there a wall above it? Is it running along the centre line of the house? Doe the joists run perpendicular to it?

A negative to all of those does not mean it isn't but is less likely. You need to see what's on top to be sure.

If it is load bearing, you need to involve building control - one of the times they really are a "must". Replacing the support looks easy but it isn't. Even when you have a beam rated for the load, you have to take care over what the beam is supported by at each end. 4" stub of old brick wall is unlikely to cut the mustard.

Are you not supposed to build a brick pillar at each end in that case? Is what happened when I had such a wall taken out at our old house.

that's what a structural engineer will tell you.

No. No. and not sure. :-)

thanks for the help.

On Friday 17 May 2013 16:38 Tim Streater wrote in uk.d-i-y:

That would be my point - you'd need *something* but that something is likely to be variable depending on other factors.

On Friday 17 May 2013 17:11 paulfoel wrote in uk.d-i-y:

And which way do the upstairs floorboards run?

On Friday 17 May 2013 16:52 The Natural Philosopher wrote in uk.d-i-y:

Or possibly a building inspector if you are very lucky and it's a "very standard" setup that he's familiar with.

But as I say - "if you are lucky". If it's weird, they will usually want to see an engineer's statement.

Other way is to form a padstone within the outside wall. That's how mine is done - to avoid having a pillar showing.

Doubt if that would have been allowed in my case - walls built of claybat.

Also, you need someone to assess if the increased point loading on the foun dations below the ends of the beam will cause trouble. In my (old) house I had to have 1 metre deep concrete pad foundations installed to take the we ight of the piers and then the beam.

they also have to assess whether you need to leave a stub of wall to provid e lateral support to the adjoining walls.

Also, if the wall is joined to a party wall, or if you are going to dig for pad foundations, you will probably need a party wall agreement with your neighbour.

Robert

It will depend on lots of things. A neighbour did this, and the walls either side (9") were strong enough, but the foundations weren't, so he had to start by underpinning them either side of the new opening.

You need the services of a structural engineer. Look on the cost as insurance that the job can be done properly. The builder, or building inspector are not qualified to tell you. It really is false economy not to get it checked.

How mcuh for structural engineer?

If wall is internal and runs parallel to run of joists it may well be non load bearing, you would need to look at what is above it.

For load bearing, start at the top of your house and work down. The roof will be supported on (some of) the external walls, but almost always some of the internal walls. These may or may not be masonry; timber studs or posts can be loadbearing, walls that appear to be solid masonry can sometimes be studs with brick infill.

These walls will either carry on down vertically to the ground floor, or be staggered at first floor. The walls at the lower floor level will almost certainly support the floor joists at some point. If you can lift first floor carpets or have bare floorboards, the joists run perpendicular to the floorboards.

Just because a wall isn't load bearing don't mean it ain't structural. It could be buttressing the wall it's attached to. If the wall is a long wall with no other buttressing, taking the whole wall out could destabilise it.