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Dear Flipped,
I recently got it into my head that the ground floor of my house would flow better with an open floor plan. I decided to knock down the wall between my dining room and living room and just open the whole thing up. I was thinking it could look like some pictures I'd seen in an interior design magazine. Anyway, as soon as I did that. The whole house collapsed.
I guess my question is: was that a load-bearing wall?
Thanks,
Concerned Renovator And Proprietor
***
Dear CRAP,
This is how you can tell if a wall is a load-bearing wall. First, follow the wall as far down as goes (if you have a basement, go there) and determine whether or not it goes into the house's foundation. If it does, it's load-bearing.
Unfortunately, since you already knocked that wall down, you can't do this.
Next, look for beams that span from the foundation to the floors above. If a wall contains beams like that, it's load-bearing. Again, this is kind of a moot point since you already knocked the wall down, but if you happened to catch a glimpse of a very long beam snapping as the house went down, that would be a good indicator.
Finally, look for floor joists, another thing that you can't do because you already took down the wall.
In conclusion, I guess we'll never know whether or not that wall was load-bearing. Some mysteries were just not meant to be solved.
Hope that helps,
Flipped
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