Double checking if this a load bearing wall?

[diy79]

Hi Guys,

I just want to double check if a wall is load bearing.

I have a wall between the Kitchen & Dinning room which spans 3.8m

I've drilled a few exploratory holes in the plasterboard ceiling & wall to find the floor joists for the bedroom upstairs. They are the new engineered lumber beams made of a chipboard & baton like construction about 220mm in height.

The joists are at 600mm centres and run PARALLEL to the wall, they don't sit on top of the wall at all.

The wall is made of thermalite bricks with plasterboard dabbed on & one of the joist sits along the top of this wall, but is the same size as the other joists.

Is this wall load bearing?

If not, is it a co-incidence that one of the joist happens to sit on top of the wall?


Thanks

 

[Teahead]

check to see if there is a wall above the joist that may be being carried through the joist onto the wall below.

sorry just re-read the question, does the parallel joist sit on the wall or just next to the wall that you wish to remove

 

[diy79]

Hi,

The joist actually sits on top of the wall. Along the top, the entire length.

Upstairs 1/2 a dividing wall between 2 bedrooms carries thru to the joist/wall downstairs. The rooms are rectangular with the corner taken out for the other room, so the this section of the dividing wall is only 1/2 the width of the room, about 1.8m of the 3.6m or so span downstairs.

The dividing wall also sound quite hollow as well.

Thanks

 

[Teahead]

Although the wall sounds like it is probably not "Load-Bearing" you will probably find that when the wall below is removed the floor will deflect and cause cracks to appear in the partition wall to masonry wall junctions at first floor level.

Before you remove this wall you should take down the ceiling each side of the wall to ensure that there are no trimmer joists that might be carrying the floor joists being supported from said wall.

You can also look to see if there is a gap between the top of of the block wall and the underside of the engineered joist.

 

[diy79]

Hi,

The joist definitely sits on top of the wall, no gap.

I'm not sure what trimmer joists are can you give me a quick explanation of what I should look for?

There a pieces of wood @ 50x30mm hung in between the joists. They sit perpendicular to the joists on small metal hangers which straddle the top of the joist.

The flooring (chipboard) above is fixed to these pieces of wood.


Thanks