About to knock down wall...

[whookam]

Hi,

I'm planning taking down a stud wall between my bathroom and lounge which will be replaced by longer stud wall with an area to fit a shower within the bathroom.

I have taken the plasterboard off the wall already and it is simply a timber stud wall with no re-enforcments as within it. The wall is approx 1m across and spans aprox. 1/3 of the way across the width of the property. I have inspected the space above the wall and the is a joist running parallel with the wall and the top plate is fastened to this but with the plasterboard between the two.

I am 99% sure that this was is not load-bearing but I thought i might ask you guys for your opinion just to make sure. My thoughts are that a builder is unlikely to sandwich plasterboard between the top plate and the joist if this is load bearing? The joist is running parallel to the wall alothough I know this doesn't definately make it non-load bearing. The fact that the wall only seems to span a third of the room also suggests to me that it is not loadbearing. My last thought is that the wall is in my first floor victiorian conversion flat which was built in 1893. I'm assuming that all loadbearing walls would have been solid back in those days and I can't see any sign of a solid wall having been taken out at any point. I will try and upload some pictures incase that makes it clear to any of you.

Ok, these pictures show the top of the wall and how it is fastend to the joist. You can see the layer of plasterboard between the two.

[masona]

whookam wrote:

I am 99% sure that this was is not load-bearing but I thought i might ask you guys for your opinion just to make sure. My thoughts are that a builder is unlikely to sandwich plasterboard between the top plate and the joist if this is load bearing? The joist is running parallel to the wall alothough I know this doesn't definately make it non-load bearing. The fact that the wall only seems to span a third of the room also suggests to me that it is not loadbearing.

You've just answered your own question

Quote:

I'm planning taking down a stud wall between my bathroom and lounge which will be replaced by longer stud wall with an area to fit a shower within the bathroom.

If you're tiling the showering area then it's should be tanked in some way, do a search here, been covered before

[whookam]

I am planning nail Hardiboard to the studwork and tank the lot with the Bal WP1 Tanking kit. Sound about right?

[masona]

whookam wrote:

I am planning nail Hardiboard to the studwork

I take it that's a spelling error as I haven't heard of it, do you mean hardboard?

Bal WP1 Tanking kit is the way to go

My opinion, I prefer wall shower panel which is a finish without the need of tiling and easy to clean etc.

[whookam]

Quote:

I take it that's a spelling error as I haven't heard of it, do you mean hardboard?

Nope Hardiboard/Hardibacker, a cement based tiling backer. Looks pretty good and is similar to aquapanel I believe.

http://www.jameshardieeu.com/pages.php?pages=products&subpage=hbacker[/quote]