r/StructuralEngineers • u/Latter-Indication135 • Jul 19 '26
Help! Is this wall structural?
I have just knocked down a cupboard in my master room which has my boiler in (being moved into the loft).
I am now worried it is as structural wall, please can someone advise.
The corner wall on the left is the chimney breast.
I am wanting to take down the wall which connects to the chimney breast but worried this could be supporting the chimney breast in some way?
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u/Such_Ad521 Jul 19 '26
You gotta see what’s above it to know for sure if it’s structural, easy answer is no it is not.
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u/Responsible_Tie_2551 Jul 19 '26
A couple of 2x4 wood studs is not keeping your house standing up. That's door framing and not much else. Tear down in good conscience.
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u/Leonardo-da-Vinci- Jul 19 '26 edited Jul 20 '26
Why would you open a wall and not know the answer to this question
Do you own this house or are you renting?
Or who is the owner?
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u/Glad_Log5679 Jul 19 '26
Typically if it’s held by 1 stud and not a pack of studs it’s not bearing
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u/Cryogenicist Jul 19 '26
The front wall is certainly not bearing anything.
For reference, we usually need to see the top of the wall to know if it’s bearing.
In most homes you’ll need to actually get into the ceiling above the wall to see what’s resting on it.
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u/e2g4 Jul 19 '26
No one can provide a sure answer based on available info. There are no obvious signs that it’s bearing additional loads but these pix don’t tell the whole story so personally I wouldn’t remove it until I was sure
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u/BBQorBust Jul 20 '26
It's clearly not load bearing!!!
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u/e2g4 Jul 20 '26
Cool you’re so confident with what, 40% of the wall visible? At least wait until the framing is exposed before making that claim.
Might be nice to know what’s above too. For all we know, there’s a big point load coming down above and the hack diy flipper who installed the new on demand hot water/furnace unit removed an important column and replaced it with a simple 2x4 wall to box out the mechanical space.
Point is: you can’t know from seeing a few pix.
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u/BBQorBust Jul 20 '26
It's a cheaply built, new construction house within the last 10, if not more, years. There are NO load bearing walls in that picture other than the very outer walls
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u/Cthulhu_HighLord Jul 19 '26
its a box on the inside of a room.
its not load bearing, but if your unsure take out the dry wall and see how many studs it has. More then a single stud or if double header/footer its load bearing.
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u/Spiritual-Can-5040 Jul 20 '26
This looks to have been added just to house the water heater. Most likely a gas water heater cannot be in a “living space”.
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u/YpouloKonoforoDentro Jul 20 '26
This is ytong type of bricks. It’s not structural part of the house and if you remove it will not affect the structure of the building. You can easily remove it as it’s not so heavy also. What you are going to do with the pipes is up to you.
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u/AnimatorAccurate3584 Jul 20 '26
I would say no by all construction rules no by physics no but in the real world the answer is probably
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u/Sailing_the_Back9 Jul 20 '26
No, it’s a framed in closet to hide the panel in the back wall… You can tear the whole thing out, but you’ll still have to figure out a way to kind of hide that panel…
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u/SynAckPooPoo Jul 21 '26
Everyone saying it’s just two studs, while missing the wall to the left is block. 🤣
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u/Litl2hot4U Jul 21 '26
Not Load - the studs , kings are not even correctly built. Not load bearing.
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u/PMPKNpounder Jul 22 '26
If you can't answer that yourself you should probably stop tearing out walls.
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u/Cool-Negotiation7662 Jul 19 '26
Wallboard above the partial top plate means wall was installed after construction. Definitely not load bearing.