Hello!
I am renovating an old apartment (built in 1907). I'm going to remove a couple of walls to make the kitchen larger. I've demolished most of them but have a piece of wall left that I'm hesitant to touch because I'm unsure if it's load-bearing or not.
The piece of wall consists of 5 sturdy studs (about 20-30 cm wide). On top of these, it's reed and plaster. I think the studs seem very large not to be load-bearing, but I'm unsure about this. The apartment above me has removed them, but they don’t know if the person who removed the wall replaced the construction with a load-bearing beam. They have lowered the ceiling in the entire kitchen, so it's hard to know...
So, is there anyone who has encountered similar constructions in old buildings who can give some advice?
Regards,
/Anders
I am renovating an old apartment (built in 1907). I'm going to remove a couple of walls to make the kitchen larger. I've demolished most of them but have a piece of wall left that I'm hesitant to touch because I'm unsure if it's load-bearing or not.
The piece of wall consists of 5 sturdy studs (about 20-30 cm wide). On top of these, it's reed and plaster. I think the studs seem very large not to be load-bearing, but I'm unsure about this. The apartment above me has removed them, but they don’t know if the person who removed the wall replaced the construction with a load-bearing beam. They have lowered the ceiling in the entire kitchen, so it's hard to know...
So, is there anyone who has encountered similar constructions in old buildings who can give some advice?
Regards,
/Anders
Hello!
My girlfriend and I have similar walls in our duplex apartment (built in 1936). We have such walls pretty much everywhere that hasn't been renovated, but they are not load-bearing because of that. We also wanted to tear down a wall in our apartment.
We bought a copy of the construction drawing of our apartment from the city planning office and asked a contractor to look at the wall we wanted to tear down. He said it was "probably" a load-bearing wall since it ran through the middle of the apartment (a so-called heart wall) and across the floor joists. We had to support the ceiling with 4 props, 2 on each side of the wall we wanted to take down, then tear down the wall and put up an IPE beam that needed to be supported by a glulam post on one side (as we have stairs leading up to the living room on the upper floor) and on the other side in a notch in the existing plank wall. We then lowered the ceiling to avoid seeing the "gypsum box" with 2 layers of gypsum (fire requirements in multi-family houses) around the IPE beam.
Even if there are only 5 sturdy planks/studs you have, they can be load-bearing because there may be load-bearing steel beams/wooden beams inside the ceiling at doorways.
My recommendation is that you look at the construction drawing and/or talk to a contractor.
Best regards / Tomas
My girlfriend and I have similar walls in our duplex apartment (built in 1936). We have such walls pretty much everywhere that hasn't been renovated, but they are not load-bearing because of that. We also wanted to tear down a wall in our apartment.
We bought a copy of the construction drawing of our apartment from the city planning office and asked a contractor to look at the wall we wanted to tear down. He said it was "probably" a load-bearing wall since it ran through the middle of the apartment (a so-called heart wall) and across the floor joists. We had to support the ceiling with 4 props, 2 on each side of the wall we wanted to take down, then tear down the wall and put up an IPE beam that needed to be supported by a glulam post on one side (as we have stairs leading up to the living room on the upper floor) and on the other side in a notch in the existing plank wall. We then lowered the ceiling to avoid seeing the "gypsum box" with 2 layers of gypsum (fire requirements in multi-family houses) around the IPE beam.
Even if there are only 5 sturdy planks/studs you have, they can be load-bearing because there may be load-bearing steel beams/wooden beams inside the ceiling at doorways.
My recommendation is that you look at the construction drawing and/or talk to a contractor.
Best regards / Tomas
Hi, thanks for the info. Now I've already torn down the wall 
. I sawed them off, one at a time for safety reasons. If they had been load-bearing, I figured the whole thing would "settle" if it was load-bearing. After sawing off the last plank, I could confirm that the structure was not load-bearing. They didn't move a micrometer even, despite being a hundred-year-old structure. The floor joists in my apartment are nothing to mess with... they're probably 7-10 cm thick and maybe 30-40 cm high (haven't measured that closely). They knew how to build back then. I don't think these joists were bought at Byggmax directly...
Best regards,
/Anders
. I sawed them off, one at a time for safety reasons. If they had been load-bearing, I figured the whole thing would "settle" if it was load-bearing. After sawing off the last plank, I could confirm that the structure was not load-bearing. They didn't move a micrometer even, despite being a hundred-year-old structure. The floor joists in my apartment are nothing to mess with... they're probably 7-10 cm thick and maybe 30-40 cm high (haven't measured that closely). They knew how to build back then. I don't think these joists were bought at Byggmax directly... Best regards,
/Anders
So good that you avoided all the hassle with the steel beam in the ceiling etc... Yes, they built with sturdy stuff back then. They weren't short on wood at least...hehe.
Ps. Hope everything turns out well with the kitchen now.
Best regards / Tomas
Ps. Hope everything turns out well with the kitchen now.
Best regards / Tomas
I am both surprised and impressed by the courage of those of you who tackle questionable walls in apartment buildings. You must have the right kind of coffee at home "in case of unexpected visits"