Supporting Walls?

perc

Just a quick question - I want to knock down some walls in a house I am buying - there are upstairs - how do I know if they are supporting walls? Thanks.

Doozergirl

A general indication would be that wall runs through the whole house (obviously!) and that the floorboards run at a 90 degree angle to the wall you want to remove. In older houses, even walls which weren't originally structural can be load bearing so be careful.

Talk to your surveyor before the survey and tell him which walls you're planning to remove and hopefully he will let you know if they are. Otherwise you can simply go round with a decent builder; they'll know.

If it is structural, you must employ a structural engineer to calculate loads for you as you will have to insert a steel beam. You'll also have to get Building Regs approval from your local council as you'll need it when you sell on. Make sure your builder helps you through this.

matto

In very general terms. If they're brick or block then they're load bearing. If they are hollow plasterboard or lath and plaster they aren't load bearing.

webrits

Here's a very good guide http://www.diydoctor.org.uk/projects/load-bearing_walls.htm on deciding if its load bearing or not....

webrits

matto wrote:

In very general terms. If they're brick or block then they're load bearing. If they are hollow plasterboard or lath and plaster they aren't load bearing.

I'm afraid that's not always the case. Use this advice at your peril.

belsh77

Be very careful as sometimes even internal walls that do not support floor joists, or purlins / rafters are still in there providing stability to walls that they connect to at 90 Degrees due to the buttressing effect. Take these out and you lose stability to the wall that is now in effect unbraced, the can cause effects such as external walls to bow out etc.
Really you need to get some plans done so you can send them out to a structural engineer, get a quote for his function for building control submission. Unfortunatly decent structural engineers are about as common as chicken teeth! Good luck

perc

Thanks guys I think I will gte my builder to have a look whilst he is quoting me on other bits