# Load Bearing Closet?



## jdhandy (Jan 11, 2009)

I have attached a few images of a closet in my home. The closet is near the center of my house and is part of the original structure. The wall (with door)included the is perpendicular to the front of the house is about 9 feet long. The portion of the wall, that is parallel to the front of the house (with door), that I would like to remove is about 3 feet long. The house is a cape cod built in 1948 and did not originally have anything in the attic (though it does now). The rafters in the attic are parallel to the 9 foot wall. There was a wall parallel to the front of the house (perp. to the 9 foot wall) that is also directly above the beams in the basement. Part of that wall was removed at some point (But must have been reinforced somehow, according to neighbors with the same type house that wall is a load bearing wall). 
I am looking to remove the beams and would like to know if either of the walls are load bearing or if the corner beam is load bearing. Any advice would be helpful.
I'm sure you will have questions so please ask.

Thanks!


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## inspectorD (Jan 11, 2009)

Yes it is load bearing, my advice is to get a structural engineer to give you some advice which will actually work. Advice from my desk chair will not help much. Kind of like when the house collapses, I can only help so much from my desk chair.
Sorry, We get this question so often and would like to help out. My feeling is for $500 bucks you can get a drawing and the correct answers instead of speculation. We would love to have the right answer and to help you out, but without actually being there and seeing what the beam is like in the basement, or the size of the footings, or the weight from upstairs walls and point loads, it would not be good advice.
Let us know what they do say, we always like to know how it turns out.


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## jdhandy (Jan 11, 2009)

inspectorD said:


> Yes it is load bearing, my advice is to get a structural engineer to give you some advice which will actually work. Advice from my desk chair will not help much. Kind of like when the house collapses, I can only help so much from my desk chair.
> Sorry, We get this question so often and would like to help out. My feeling is for $500 bucks you can get a drawing and the correct answers instead of speculation. We would love to have the right answer and to help you out, but without actually being there and seeing what the beam is like in the basement, or the size of the footings, or the weight from upstairs walls and point loads, it would not be good advice.
> Let us know what they do say, we always like to know how it turns out.



How do I go about finding a structural engineer?
Thanks!


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## inspectorD (Jan 11, 2009)

You can always look in the yellow pages, but to me that does not help much. In your area you may have a local lumber yard, try them. Ussually they need an engineer for LVL calculations. Another source is the building department of your town. They know who the good ones are, they see thier prints all the time.
Good luck.


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## ciera (Jan 12, 2009)

> How do I go about finding a structural engineer?



Call some home inspectors (the kind you use when you first bought the house). There seem to be some structural engineers in the business. Even if whoever you call isn't one, they'll know who is.


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## SPISurfer (Jan 13, 2009)

JDHandy,
Inspector D gave a good tip.  We found our second structural engineer through the lumber yard.  Most likely he will already knows the layout of your home.  We have the same problem, but our is a load bearing pantry.  As for the fee - the first engineer, who told us which walls that were non-load bearing, charged $100.  He got up in the attic, made some notes, and came back after we took down the walls. He never would come up with the calculations for the load bearing wall, so we got the next guy through the lumber yard.    I can't find the bill right now.  His fee was on the same bill as the LVL beam that he made for us and it was less than $300.  Having our wall down and the space is worth it.


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