Is it safe to make a hole in this upstairs stud wall?

[Danturboc]

The walls in my house are brick downstairs then wooden stud walls upstairs, I plan on making a large hole 1500mm x 1981mm in my bedroom wall that leads to the bedroom next to it.

Is this date to do? I will be framing the hole I make with timber to keep as much strength as possible. The whole wall is roughly 4000mm long so there's still plenty of wall left. Any help appreciated

Oh and it's a 3 bed semi so there are other walls upstairs also.

 

[chappers]

yep as long as you trim it out properly, if it's structural you will need extra supports. i.e. double header and new legs.

 

[Danturboc]

Is there a way of telling if it's structural? There is no wall directly under it. Nothing in the loft above it. The only thing I can see is that the ceiling joists are split in 2 and they join together above this wall. But there not specifically joined too the wall

 

[^woody^]

Is there a way of telling if it's structural?

Yes. Look at the outside, and if you are not in a street of black and white Tudor buildings, then it's most likely not a structural wall.

The words 'semi', 'first floor' and 'plasterboard' can safely be used in sentences along with 'non structural'.

 

[Danturboc]

Haha ok I take your point. I will go up in the loft again just to double check everything before I go cutting

 

[Danturboc]

I asked on the screw fix forum about this too and some people on there are saying it's going to weaken the ceiling allot and they wouldn't risk it, I will get some pics up

 

[Danturboc]

Just to add to this here's some pics and hopefully it will make sense:
You can see 3 doors here and the middle one is a partition that I created which was going to be the loft staircase for a future loft conversion, this plan has now changed.


So because of this there is another stud wall in there on the left that I made which is also screwed to the ceiling joists so essentially supporting them also.




So this is a pic of the wall I want to cut the hole out of to create a small walk in wardrobe. This is the original stud wall:


Hope it makes abit more sense now

 

[WabbitPoo]

nope. just get cutting.

 

[theprinceofdarkness]

Being pessimistic, I would say the ceiling joists are resting on the wall header. This in turn is stitting on the wall studs, which are sitting on the brick wall. So when you cut out the studs the ceiling joists are now resting on the header and will try to bow it. Doubling up the studding and an extra header will stiffen things up. A couple of things when fixing in the new header, a, glue it to the underneath of old as well as using a lot of screws and b, while you do it use a prop to make sure that the original ceiling line is maintained. Glueing is an attempt to make two bits of wood act as one, doubling the thickness properly will reduce the deflection by a factor of 8. Just nailing them would be a factor off two.
Frank

 

[Danturboc]

Thanks for the reply, not sure which bit you mean by the header? Do you mean the main bit of wood at the top of the stud wall that runs right across?

 

[theprinceofdarkness]

Yes, across the top of the studs.
Frank