Load-bearing wall

A load-bearing wall or bearing wall is a wall that bears the weight of the house above said wall, resting upon it by conducting its weight to a foundation structure. The materials most often used to construct load-bearing walls in large buildings are concrete, block, or brick.

By contrast, a curtain wall provides no significant structural support beyond what is necessary to bear its own materials or conduct such loads to a bearing wall.

Load-bearing walls are one of the earliest forms of construction. The development of the flying buttress in Gothic architecture allowed structures to maintain an open interior space, transferring more weight to the buttresses instead of to central bearing walls. For example, the Notre Dame Cathedral has a load-bearing wall structure with flying buttresses.

The birth of the skyscraper era, the concurrent rise of steel as a more suitable framing system first designed by William Le Baron Jenney, and the limitations of load-bearing construction in large buildings led to a decline in the use of load-bearing walls in large-scale, commercial structures.

Depending on the type of building and the number of floors, load-bearing walls are gauged to the appropriate thickness to carry the weight above them. Without doing so, it is possible that an outer wall could become unstable if the load exceeds the strength of the material used, potentially leading to the collapse of the structure. The primary function of this wall is to enclose or divide space of the building to make it more functional and useful. It provides privacy, affords security, and gives protection against heat, cold, sun or rain.

In housing, load-bearing walls are most common in the light construction method known as "platform framing", and each load-bearing wall sits on a wall sill plate which is mated to the lowest base plate. The sills are bolted to the masonry or concrete foundation.

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