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Removing a Load Bearing Wall

Bob meets with Ron Gan, the general contractor for the project, to discuss the changes that will be made. After reviewing construction drawings, Gan is satisfied with the architect's plans to open up the narrow space. Bob and Ron go inside where Lenny from Inner City Demolition is making some exploratory holes in the ceiling to figure out the next steps in removing the load bearing wall. He has verified that the second floor joists sit on the bearing wall studs and found there is metal lath over wooden lath and arched doorways which were all added in a later renovation. The load bearing wall will be taken out and replaced with a single beam. Bob and Gan look at a section of the house and Gan shows Bob where the studs will be removed and replaced with a header to carry the weight. Through the header the weight of the floors above will be transferred down posts that go down through to the basement and are anchored on concrete footings. Before removing the wall, however, the structure must be shored up and the beam must be engineered.

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Redesigning the House on CAD Now Playing

Redesigning the House on CAD

Removing a Load Bearing Wall Now Playing

Removing a Load Bearing Wall

Clip Transcript For:

Removing a Load Bearing Wall

computer-generated transcript - may not be 100% accurate

" Well, from the world of big building back our street and to our little building and to meet Ron Gan."

" Hi Bob."

" Hi Ron."

" And Ron is gonna be our general contractor here. He's gonna help us implement some of those ideas that----so Bob has shared with us earlier. What do you think of his plan?"

" I think it's a good plan Bob, taking a narrow space and I think he's gonna be able to open it up and make it very livable and----"

" Uhm."

" Bright and airy and I'm really excited about it."

" Yeah, I am too. Have you taken a good look at this place? Is it doable?"

" Yeah. I think it's definitely doable, Bob. In fact, we just did a little bit of investigating in there, you know, I kinda look at some situations around the bearing wall----"

" Yeah."

" And I'd like to take in----"

" So you're scouring down some plaster already?"

" We took a little bit of plaster down and I wanna show you what we've done."

" Exciting."

" Well Bob, it sounds like we have something going on here already."

" Exciting, yeah."

" So, all of these little wall are gonna be sliced----"

" Ahh."

" Well."

" This is Lenny from Inner City Demolition and we're having him to give us some exploratory hole here. The reason of being is that the key to this project is gonna be the removal oh----what is buried along here."

" That's right."

" And we wanna verify that this is in fact the buried wall. The 4 joints above are very bearing on it, carrying the weight."

" I do not envy him with that demolition job. That is [unk] the metal lasts, which is probably put on in there as the remodeling maybe 40 years ago right over the old wooden [unk]."

" Yeah, it looks like it to me and they have these arches here which are not typical of a 1900 building, so I think you're right about that."

" Yeah. The arches probably were put in into the 30s at the time that they put in a new ceiling. And that is tough stuff to tear apart, yeah."

" So, there are no surprises up there, right?"

" No. It looks to me that the joints are very right on this wall right here and----"

" And if we wanna take those, those wall studs out of there, we have to replace that structure?"

" Right. And what we're gonna replace it with is a header, a beam that's gonna go across there. We have a little sections of building here. This is the basement, first floor and second floor."

" Yeah."

" here's where you're standing right now, Bob."

" Okay, in front of that wall."

" In front this wall and what we wanna do is we wanna take all of the studs from right here out and replace those with the beam or a header that will go across here to carry the weight of the second floor. And we're gonna transfer the weight down to some posts right here down these post here down to some motor post into the basement and those are gonna bear on some concrete footings."

" Yeah."

" And that will carry the weight and we'll be able to open the space [unk]."

" Yeah."

" There's a lot of delicate portion involved here and before we can remove all those wall studs we really have to do some shoring up the hole up that second floor and we have to engineer that header or beam to find out exactly what sizes for the beam."

" That's right."

" So, what Lenny is doing right now is really just preliminary exploratory demolition, right?"

" That's right."

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