How To Tell Load Bearing Wall With Truss Roof

Look for the signs of big sturdy wooden or metal structures crossing a room s ceiling and intersecting a wall that you know is load bearing or an external wall like boxy horizontal protrusions crossing the ceiling.

How to tell load bearing wall with truss roof.

We usually build on the exterior walls set the trusses and do all of the chord blocking and truss bracing before buildin. If the wall in question is parallel to the joists trusses it will likely not be load bearing. Residentiall roof trusses are designed to bear only on the exterior walls at each end of the span. But if the wall runs perpendicular at a 90 degree angle to the joists there is a good chance that it is load bearing.

Engineered roof truss systems may be designed to eliminate the need for load bearing walls or change where the bearing walls are located. If you see these nearby internal walls may not be load bearing. Actually a quick way to determine if the wall is bearing is to cut hole at the top to see if it has one or two top plates. However there are cases where a bearing wall is parallel to the joists.

An example of a load bearing wall call be seen on the right. If there are two plates refer to an engineer. But there are five possible exceptions to look out for. Load bearing walls cross roof beams in a perpendicular direction.

An example of a non load bearing partition wall can be seen on the left. 1 when the home has an l or t shape there may be an interior bearing wall under the intersection of the perpendicular rows of trusses. When joists trusses are perpendicular to the wall and bear on the top of the wall that wall is bearing wall. Using this technique you ll get a better idea of the location of the load bearing walls in your house.

One top plate and a space between the bottom chord of the truss and the top of the wall non load bearing. Chances are this is a non bearing wall. If a wall is located on the ground floor go down to the basement to observe the ceiling beams.