I'm sure you have seen similar things before, but please humour me.

So I'm considering a kitchen renovation that could involve opening up my main floor to an open concept. I know the best way is to open up a wall and take a peak, but sitting on my couch and not wanting to poke holes just yet I would like to get some opinions on whether the walls are load bearing or not.

I have a 1960's 3-level side split. The space below the main is a crawl space, and there is a peaked roof above. The joists and the trusses run in the same direction. My attached sketch shows just the main floor, the upper floor and basement are on the left side. I'm wondering if the walls in red are load bearing. I'm certain the ones running north-south are not, but I just don't know about the one running east-west. The only thing that makes me wonder it's not is that the area of the main floor that has no east-west wall has no bulkhead of any kind, the ceiling is smooth.

I'm interested to see what people think.

Thanks very much.

 

Welcome to the forums!

Generally if there is a truss system the only the walls at each end of the truss are load bearing. Can you get into the attic for a look see?

 

Thanks marksr.

I was slightly incorrect on the roofline in the drawing. Here's a picture of the exterior of the house:



The floorplan is for the main floor only.

What would I be looking for in the attic in this case? The trusses where the roof line begins to fall off being connected to the trusses that run North-South with no loading bearing transfer under each of them?

There's a lot of insulation up there so it will be hard to see much.

 

In a typical attic it would be easy to not see the joists under the insulation.
Trusses are a different matter. Several are shown in the picture below. You can't miss their distinct design. Most of it will not be covered by the insulation.

 

I would just add that truss's are normally factory made and very uniform as opposed to stick built framing that is put together on site. It's fairly easy to tell the difference.

 

Okay, that took longer than expected.

Here is a picture of the attic. Those supports seem to come down directly on the corner of the interior wall. I guess that means it's load bearing and I am out of luck. Does that make sense?

I just don't understand why they bothered to support such a small part of the roof on that one spot.