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Removing wall under stairs

13K views 3 replies 3 participants last post by  Termite 
#1 ·
Hello,

I am looking for some advice on opening up the hall area by removing the 2 walls that form a cupboard under the stairs. (not the wall between the lounge and stairs). I need to know if I can simply remove these 2 walls or whether there are structural implications. The walls are made of brick not plasterboard which makes me slightly concerned.
I would have thought that the top of the stairs would be attached to a joist but apart from that would support themselves.
Also I would think that they are not load bearing walls as the 2 main walls in the hall (that run parallel to the stairs) run perpendicular to the joists upstairs and would seem to be the supporting walls.
Can anyone offer any advice or tell me what to look for.
Your help would be most appreciated as I don't want the stairs or house to collapse.

Lankston

as there is no Homer Simpson smilie I'll go with .........
:help:
 
#4 ·
It is common for non-load bearing walls to lend just enough stiffness to stairs to keep them from being springy.

The stairs' attachment totally depends on how and when it was built.

I'd caution you not to remove any walls without consulting a structural engineer. Contact your local building inspector...He should be willing to provide you with names of engineers that often do work in your area. Consultations with engineers are not always thousands of dollars. Here, there are numerous engineers that will look at things like this for a couple hundred bucks.
 
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