We are going to remove an interior wall that has a water waste pipe and copper plumbing in the middle of the wall. This is a supporting wall, so we need to put a header in. This wall is also on the middle floor of a two story house with the basement below and the upstairs above. I would like to have the header go into the beams above so that we have a smooth ceiling with no header exposed. This is possible because the joists in the ceiling run the same direction as the wall. In looking at the pipes from the basement ceiling, we would need to reroute the waste line and the copper plumbing so that they would be at one end of the wall and come down through a false column. These pipes go up to the bathroom on the top floor. The reason I want the header hidden is that we are expanding the room by 10 feet and don't want the header showing as that really breaks up the room and looks awkward. I'm guessing that the space between the joists where the header would go has the plumbing from the upstairs bathroom in it. Is there anyway around this? What other options might I have? I will have access to the entire plumbing from the exposed ceiling. The wall is 8ft in height by 9ft in length. Pictures of the wall are seen here along with the plumbing view from the basement ceiling.

 

I would agree and that's where the difficulty comes in. You will more than likely have to open more of the ceiling then you wanted to just to adress the plumbing issues.

Small water lines aren't too bad but drain lines are a different thing.

What you want to do is not a walk in the park.

 

If the joists are parallel with the wall, please explain why you believe it is load bearing. Do the joists upstairs run perpendicular to this wall?

 

Yes, the joists run perpendicular and part of the space above the wall is an open hallway.

 

Are the ceiling joists upstairs part of a truss roof system?

 

I've added more pictures for you. We've opened up the wall to reveal the plumbing. I also took some pictures of the attic space, so you could get a visual for the support structure up there. The posts that run down at an angle do not run directly into this wall. The picture of the white pipe in the attic was taken beside the angled post to give you a perspective of distance. One reason we think that this is a supporting wall is also because we think the joists on each side of the wall run perpendicular to each other based on the length of the rooms and there is no wall below this one in the basement. I'm pretty sure that the walls in the middle of the house are all supporting walls as they are on all three floors.

 

Question for you...Does a supporting wall have to have a wall below it? This one does not. Someone else mentioned that it has to have a wall and the fact that plumbing runs through it would violate code of a supporting wall. What are your thoughts regarding this?