Hello everyone! I have two questions I need advice on, and they're about some ideas I have for solving our floor plan at home, and both questions are somewhat about load-bearing walls đ
1. We would like to halve this wall (green), sort of make a half wall since there is a staircase on the other side, a bit like making it a railing. (Additionally, a hallway is to be built through these rooms into the other because currently, you have to go through room after room to get to another one.) To make the hallway not feel too enclosed, we thought of opening it up here... my question then is how to handle the door opening and what is broken, is it load-bearing? The same wall but from the staircase's side shows that the wall to the left of the door extends further than it does inside the green room, and thatâs because thereâs a dormer by the stairs... perhaps this wall needs to be load-bearing? That it has a function together with the dormer?
2. The wall by our other staircase (we have two) is a wall into a crawl space, and I have an idea to make it more open and nice (intended to become a closet), by installing windows and building into the small space by the stairs. The idea is that you directly come up to a glass door, and the space that is built-in has windows.... So it doesn't become so closed off. But the same thing here is that there's a dormer by the door to the crawl space... Can you install windows in a load-bearing wall (if it is load-bearing)? đ
To add, our outer roof isn't broken, but the ceiling inside is broken.
Maybe my questions stem from not knowing what can be load-bearing or not... maybe I should get a carpenter to look at it. But if anyone here has advice/tips, itâs always something đ
1. We would like to halve this wall (green), sort of make a half wall since there is a staircase on the other side, a bit like making it a railing. (Additionally, a hallway is to be built through these rooms into the other because currently, you have to go through room after room to get to another one.) To make the hallway not feel too enclosed, we thought of opening it up here... my question then is how to handle the door opening and what is broken, is it load-bearing? The same wall but from the staircase's side shows that the wall to the left of the door extends further than it does inside the green room, and thatâs because thereâs a dormer by the stairs... perhaps this wall needs to be load-bearing? That it has a function together with the dormer?
2. The wall by our other staircase (we have two) is a wall into a crawl space, and I have an idea to make it more open and nice (intended to become a closet), by installing windows and building into the small space by the stairs. The idea is that you directly come up to a glass door, and the space that is built-in has windows.... So it doesn't become so closed off. But the same thing here is that there's a dormer by the door to the crawl space... Can you install windows in a load-bearing wall (if it is load-bearing)? đ
To add, our outer roof isn't broken, but the ceiling inside is broken.
Maybe my questions stem from not knowing what can be load-bearing or not... maybe I should get a carpenter to look at it. But if anyone here has advice/tips, itâs always something đ
An old rule of thumb is that walls running parallel with the roof ridge are usually load-bearing. Of course, there are a lot of exceptions.
If it's possible to get an expert to take a look, that's obviously the best option. But based on the floor plan, I doubt the wall is load-bearing.
If it's possible to get an expert to take a look, that's obviously the best option. But based on the floor plan, I doubt the wall is load-bearing.
As an amateur, I believe that in all the knee walls there are roof trusses that support the roof, including the knee wall referred to as Klk by one of the staircases. I recommend that you bring in a structural engineer because it's difficult to know how houses, built before standardization began, are constructed. This floor has also been remodeled later on.