Seeking Opinions on Removing Load-Bearing Wall & Re-Routing Ducts
Is removing a load-bearing wall worth rerouting three HVAC ducts? I recently purchased a house and am planning a renovation that includes moving the laundry upstairs, removing a non-load-bearing wall, installing new flooring, and renovating the kitchen. I am…
Is removing a load-bearing wall worth rerouting three HVAC ducts? I recently purchased a house and am planning a renovation that includes moving the laundry upstairs, removing a non-load-bearing wall, installing new flooring, and renovating the kitchen. I am also considering removing the load-bearing wall between the kitchen and dining room. The new structural beam has already been engineered, but the wall contains three HVAC ducts serving separate upstairs rooms. I have not found a clean way to reroute the ducts without adding visible ceiling soffits or chases. Removing the wall would improve the layout and make the dining room more functional, since we plan to use the table every day. Would you remove the wall and accept some type of soffit or chase, or keep the wall to avoid the HVAC complications? Is this the kind of project that is worth doing now while the house is already under renovation? I would appreciate some human advice. Chatgpt keeps telling me to go for it.
Collected discussion
Easier to move between the kitchen and the dining room. Just a 2.5’ opening now would increase to 8.5’. Be able to keep an eye on the kids while in the kitchen.
I’m debating if I want to take the wall out or just leave it as is.
Obviously I can do that. Or I can leave it as is. The point of the post is to get perspective on whether it’s worth all that coordination and effort before I get started.
Yikes. Do not listen to ChatGPT. Hire a professional they will have ideas better than yours.
I guess I didn’t word my post correctly. Should I just leave the wall as is. Or go through the hastle of hiring professionals and creating a longer renovation schedule and price. Is the effort worth the benefit?
Without professional design review, there is no renovation. If you want the renovation, hire a professional. If you don’t, leave it alone. Spend less time using AI. It’s obvious from your posts here that you depend on others to do the thinking for you. AI will only make that mistake a bigger one.
You are talking about something totally subjective for which you have provided no specifics. My point is that an architect is trained to get those specifics out of you and can help you rationalize your approach.
Reddit can be harsh sometimes. You mentioned AI and people decided for that they'd downvote everything and argue with you every step of the way. Your idea is fine, open up the kitchen, your concern that I understand is by removing the wall, now you have to deal with the 3 ducts in the wall, and you feel that your main option would involve having to build some type of bulkhead or chase to route the ductwork right? Don't like the overall aesthetics of that? Do you know what they are generally (ie: supply air living room, supply air kitchen, shared return air), etc? You'll obviously be opening up some massive drywall openings to remove a load bearing wall and install a structural beam, and of course I take this as you using licensed contractors and the contractors using some approved drawings otherwise the City wouldn't approve you a permit for this. Obvious obvious thing to say, but make sure there are permits for this renovation, I'm sure you obviously are. You can get a pretty good idea of what you want in terms of ductwork by just figuring out where the ducts go and what they do, to what trunk they tie into, and what other routing could be done instead. Just sit and visualize it in your own house. Come up with every possible scenario. If I were committed to removing a load bearing wall to open up a kitchen, I wouldn't let 3 ducts in the wall stop that renovation in it's tracks, even if it meant building a bulkhead or something on the ceiling. Depends how much you think that ruins your aesthetic. But you can go even further with ductwork and avoid that too by just opening other walls and running ductwork further in less direct ways. Everything is solvable with $$$. Consider too there might be (almost certainly is) electrical in the wall which will also need to be rerouted and moved.
I’d be careful about making that call based on layout alone. If the wall is already coming out, that may be the right time to deal with the ducts too, but I’d want an HVAC pro and a structural engineer to look at the actual space before committing. A soffit or chase might be annoying, but so is living with a layout you end up regretting.
I wouldn’t do it based on what I know from the description.
Let’s start with the most important detail. ChatGPT is not a licensed architect, GC, or structural engineer. AI shouldn’t be a part of your decision making process. Talk to a licensed professional and get real advice. Only accept it from people who physically come to your home and analyze the structure, HVAC, etc. Anything else is speculation.
Talk to a mechanical engineer about rerouting the HVAC and a structural engineer about removing any walls. Better yet, talk to an architect and let them coordinate with the appropriate engineers to propose a design that takes all perspectives into consideration.
I hate removing walls. More functional how? Wow, my but really sits in the seat a bit harder now, thank goodness the wall is gone! It's a waste of money to me.
You’re not going to get useful answers here because we can’t see your home layout or the options you’re imagining. We also don’t know what you ultimately value in your home. The same limitations apply for ChatGPT. If you want useful advice on this, you need to find a professional to visit your home and walk through your options. I say all of this as someone who has completed a renovation where we removed a load-bearing wall and re-routed ductwork. It can be done and was worth it for us. But if the layout or ductwork were different, we may well have done it differently.
We just bought and are in the middle of the reno now. GC pulled permits for the construction, had an engineer come out to determine load bearing wall status (ultimately was not load bearing) and took out a few walls, and we have our HVAC guy rerouting and replacing several ducts and supplies/returns. Do it all now and have professionallly done, IMO
- get a consult from a HVAC outfit