They Supported The Weight Of The Roof And The Walls

For example a gable end truss may be designed with support members that transmit the roof weight load outward to the side walls allowing the end wall directly below it to have breaks or openings in it that would otherwise be impossible.

They supported the weight of the roof and the walls.

Trusses are quite common these days because they have five big advantages from the builder s standpoint. When in doubt about whether a wall is supporting treat it as if it is. Go up in the attic and find where the wall you want to remove hits the ceiling. Some houses are designed so that only some of the outside walls support the roof weight.

See if you have a hole in it where you can see if it is a double top plate. They should be designed to span the whole width but they also could have been engineered to have a load bearing wall. Are used without framing. Posts in the basement or crawlspace can indicate supporting walls up above.

The alternative is to build up the roof s frame with 2x8s and 2x10s. Trusses are pre fabricated triangulated wooden structures used to support the roof. This house uses trusses for the roof framing. Engineered roof truss systems may be designed to eliminate the need for load bearing walls or change where the bearing walls are located.

If so it is probably load bearing. They not only support the weight of the ceiling material but also bear the outward pressure that is placed on exterior walls from the weight of the roof. Framing materials are usually wood engineered wood or structural steel the alternative to framed construction is generally called mass wall construction where horizontal layers of stacked materials such as log building masonry rammed earth adobe etc.