Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Bearing Wall Live Load Reduction

We are designing a multi-family project with 5-stories of wood on top of 2-levels of concrete.  For the wood portion, we are using corridor, exterior and selected interior walls as bearing walls.  The question was raised as to whether any live load reduction is allowed for the bearing walls.  I can’t find a code basis for reducing the load but have found that some engineers do take some reduction in the load both for the walls themselves and for the wall load on the concrete for the concrete design.  Does anyone have thoughts on this or a rational approach to allow a reduction?

 

Greg in Minnesota