“Can I Remove This Wall?”

We wanted to remove this wall in our 115 year old home to make a more open living/dining space

Probably one of the most common questions I get when showing older homes is whether or not a wall can be removed. Older homes were built with a different lifestyle in mind with less emphasis on open concept and direct sightlines from room to room. It seems that the trend to have an open concept kitchen/dining/living is very key these days, and in older homes there is sometimes a wall (or 2) in the way. So the answer to the question “can I knock down this wall” is YES! That simple answer is packed full of information, however, as some walls are more easily removed than others, and the ease of removing a wall is mostly dictated on whether that wall bears a load or not.

After consulting with our structural engineer we were able to remove the wall opening the space. A beam was later recessed in the ceiling to support the roof structure

Because load bearing walls hold the weight of the roof and transfer that weight down through the house through to the basement, those two areas (attic and basement) are the best places to start looking at whether a wall is load bearing. Once you are in the attic, or basement, you will want to look to see which way the joists are running, and pay attention to the spot where they “sister”, usually somewhere in the middle of the attic/basement. Once you determine which way the joists run, the walls that are perpendicular to those joists are most likely going to be load bearing.

While self diagnosing is nice to be able to do on the fly, consulting a contractor or better yet, a structural engineer should definitely be done before you start slamming away at a wall. If the wall you are removing is load bearing, you will need to have a structural engineer look at it to determine how you can span that load with thicker beams. These beams can sometimes be totally hidden in an attic keeping a clean look to the ceiling. In the basement, it may be tougher to hide one of these beams, but you may be able to dress the beam to give a stylistic flair to the finished product.

Here is another great example the removal of a downstairs wall on a clients home. When they moved in they realized that there was a huge laundry room downstairs that was a bunch of wasted space that could better be used as a family room. The wall they wanted to remove was smack dab in the middle of the house with the joists running perpendicular to it, so it was a load bearing wall. After removing the drywall and consulting with a structural engineer to determine the size of beam needed to span the load, they were able to reframe out the room, add the structural beam, and finish the space off to make a much better and usable space.

This Old House has a great informational video all about load bearing walls that I highly recommend watching to get up to speed on identifying which walls are easy to remove. I can highly recommend spending about 5 minutes on this video as they describe what makes up a load bearing wall and how to safely and effectively remove one.