Removing a 4 foot opening in a load bearing wall (for fish tank)

~callie~

Hello all,

I am trying to build a fish tank into a load bearing wall and want to make sure I take all necessary precautions.

The fish tank wall used to be the exterior wall of the house before an additional laundry room was added on a few years ago. Now it is the wall separating the kitchen from the laundry room. There is a story above it and the wall above is actually the exterior wall of the house. The wall below in the basement is a concrete foundation wall (there is no foundation below the laundry room). The fish tank wall is plaster with standard studs and is 12' tall.

I want to remove basically a 4' wide by 22" tall opening from the center of the wall, starting at about 42" high. First, is this a horrible idea? Second, is it possible to do myself, or would that also be a horrible idea? Finally, if I did do it myself, how would I support the wall while installing the double header and studs to frame out the hole for the tank?

Scuba_Dave

With a cement foundation you have plenty of support below
Above you will need to build a header supported by new studs
Header size will depend upon the load from above
You have an outside wall, roof above that, then the laundry room of the same wall
Do you have a pic of the outside to see which way the roof slopes?