Load Bearing Wall - Easy Determination?

[RapaNui]

Hi all,

I've contacted several structural engineers over the past few weeks to determine whether a wall is load-bearing, but no one has gotten back to me. We're looking to remove a section of a wall separating our kitchen and living room. We would leave the header in place and there would be ~8ft between studs. Our house is a 1960's split-level home with a truss system supporting the roof. I took a photo in the attic and have marked approximately where the wall currently is.

Because it's a truss roof and the wall is not directly underneath any of the supports, is it fair to say it's not load bearing?

Cheers

 

[hj]

Trusses are supported by their ends. In fact, they often do not rest on cross partitions, which is why they have 'sliding clips' to secure to the partitions.

 

[Sponsor]

 

[Reach4]

Have you looked in the crawl space or basement? That would be another indication IMO.

 

[Terry]

Trusses are supported by their ends. In fact, they often do not rest on cross partitions, which is why they have 'sliding clips' to secure to the partitions.

I'm with hj on this. They look to be roof trusses, which are supported on the ends.
You could remove that entire wall and it wouldn't matter.

 

[wwhitney]

That's current practice, but can you say with certainty that 50 years ago trusses weren't ever designed with intermediate supports? The fact the diagonal supports don't land on the wall also makes it very unlikely that the wall is not load bearing, but again do you have sufficient certainty?

An engineer could evaluate the existing trusses and determine their capacity, to see if it can span between exterior walls as expected. Or if you have original construction documents, or can find a manufacturer stamp on the trusses, you may be able to determine that without an engineer.

Cheers, Wayne

 

[RapaNui]

I'm definitely on the edge of certainty, but I decided to go back up and take a look where the trusses meet the wall's top plate. I was looking for some spacing between them, but unfortunately, they are in direct contact and nailed together with a single nail (photos attached). From was I've read, this seems to not be the best practice by today's standards.

The trusses above the doorway aren't in contact with anything, as it doesn't appear there is a header or top plate there. I'm going to start doing some math with this truss calculator. http://design.medeek.com/calculator/calculator.pl

 

[WorthFlorida]

As other stated above, the sole purpose of roof trust, as you have, brings the entire load to the end walls. It is stronger, faster to install and very stable than other roof systems. It is the same as a trust bridge span.

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