Selling Your House

Maintaining Limerick Property

Before any modifications are made to a wall in your home, it is important to have a basic understanding of how that change could affect its structural integrity. Here is a brief but to the point essay on this heavy subject!

There are two types of walls in a home... load bearing and non-load bearing.

Homes are over engineered with good reason. Do you really need 2x4 wall studs every 16" (center to center) to prevent your house from collapsing? Under most circumstances, the honest answer is no. Then, why is this an accepted construction standard? Why not 18"? Or 24"?

Engineers design structures to be able to handle loads and forces greater than what they could ever be expected to handle under real world conditions. Based on the current sizing of lumber, and modern construction practices, 16" was determined to be the right spacing between wall studs for residential load conditions.

This over engineering allows you to put a large cabinet or waterbed in your upstairs bedroom, or a grand piano in the living room, and not having to worry about your home collapsing on you! This margin of safety designed into structures via enforcement of building codes is something for which we should be thankful.

Even so, we can't think in terms of cutting wall studs willy-nilly! If we are engaged in a project that requires cutting of wall studs, we must try to understand something about how weight or the structure above a wall, or load, is distributed. Only then can we proceed safely and with the confidence that comes with being prepared!

How do you determine whether a wall is load-bearing? This can be difficult to determine even for an experienced carpenter. Analyzing the wall loads in large, complicated homes is tough enough to understand. When there have been renovations, this determination can become nearly impossible. Even building inspectors rely on the "when in doubt" principle... when in doubt, assume the wall is load bearing and act accordingly.

It is easy to understand how renovations can cause weight to be transferred onto formerly non-load bearing partition walls. For example, the addition of exhaust fans and attic stairways often requires cutting of ceiling joists, which can also transfer loads from the original walls... the main (center of the house) beam and the outside wall, onto non-load bearing walls that are in between them. Adding a room in an attic can change the entire load bearing status of the walls below.

Article taken from www.naturalhandyman.com

Limerick City Property For Sale

Galway Property to Rent

Property Values in Dublin

Cork Property News

Dublin Property Sales News

Property News from Limerick
Advertise Your House for Free
LimerickHouses.ie
Advertise | Exchange | Renting | Wanted | Contact Us | Links
Property Sales & Rent Ads for every County

The page requested is no longer on our server.

To place a property for sale advertisement for any county in Ireland, please click on the link below

Limerick Property | LimerickHouses.ie



Houses & Homes for Sale | Flats & Apartments to Rent & Let | House Sharing available around these areas:
Auburn Barrybeg Baylough Bunnavally Burgess Park Clonbrusk Coosan Cornamaddy Craigduff Creggan Lower Creggan Upper Cushlea Doovoge Duogue Golden Island Hill of Berries Kilnamagh Lakeview Meadowbrook Meehan Monksland Retreat Twomile Round Williamstown Woodville Grange
Home | Contact Us
Terms and Conditions | Privacy Policy | Pricing | Legal | Preparing | Photographing

Copyright © 2007-2009 AthloneHouses.com All Rights Reserved