marriage wall
Posted: Fri Jul 09, 2010 11:28 am
Ok, I learned from this site and all you knowledgable folks that the marriage wall is supposed to be load bearing. Makes sense.
But there is always the exception to the rule.
We are remodeling our kitchen and I wanted the wall opened up between the kitchen and dining room, 2 different sections connected with a marriage wall.
This is what we found, the interior walls are not load bearing. The walls were built in place and set up, they even installed the ceiling drywall before placing the walls!?!?! (the drywall is sandwiched between the top plate of the wall and what would usually be a wall top plate to support the rafters). You can "wiggle" the studs, so no weight on them at all.
The headers for the doors were not supported by king studs, just stapled at the top and sides.
I was going to post some pics but they are too big, I'll see if I can resize some of them and start a photo album.
Oh, and they took long nails and bent them over, it appears in order to "secure" the two walls together, no wonder there was such a problem with cracks in the drywall.
But there is always the exception to the rule.
We are remodeling our kitchen and I wanted the wall opened up between the kitchen and dining room, 2 different sections connected with a marriage wall.
This is what we found, the interior walls are not load bearing. The walls were built in place and set up, they even installed the ceiling drywall before placing the walls!?!?! (the drywall is sandwiched between the top plate of the wall and what would usually be a wall top plate to support the rafters). You can "wiggle" the studs, so no weight on them at all.
The headers for the doors were not supported by king studs, just stapled at the top and sides.
I was going to post some pics but they are too big, I'll see if I can resize some of them and start a photo album.
Oh, and they took long nails and bent them over, it appears in order to "secure" the two walls together, no wonder there was such a problem with cracks in the drywall.