Removing Interior Walls With Hip Roofs

Go into your basement or crawlspace and look at the alignment of floor joists.

Removing interior walls with hip roofs.

The wall you are wanting to remove is not a bearing wall by looking at the framing in the attic and the roof lines of the house. Interior walls can also provide load bearing support for the roof system for the floors above or for intermediate support of long spans and splices in the ceiling joists. But there are five possible exceptions to look out for. Just to be on the side of caution i would install an 8ft 4x4 directly centered under the splice with lag bolts and remove the vertical.

These are large pieces of lumber going across the house from side to side supporting the floor roof and are generally 16 apart. First determine if the wall you want to remove is a load bearing wall meaning it supports the floor above. Interior walls often provide hidden passage for utilities such as hvac heating ventilation and air conditioning electrical wiring and plumbing. Residentiall roof trusses are designed to bear only on the exterior walls at each end of the span.

Structural walls on two story homes with gable roofs are commonly the center wall running parallel with the length of the house and the front and rear walls on the exterior. However a house with a hip roof structure suggests that all the exterior walls are bearing walls.