Load-bearing wall inspections, removal design, and sealed permit letters from the engineer who answers the question on site. Start with the free check, or send the address and opening you have in mind.
Start with the question. Finish with a permit-ready path forward.
These are the signals that actually move the needle: joist direction, what's stacked above, what's holding it up below, where the wall sits in the plan. Answer honestly, including "I don't know." Not knowing is a real answer and it changes the read.
Joists are the beams carrying your floor or ceiling. They span from support to support, and anything sitting underneath and across them is probably carrying their load. Anything running alongside them usually isn't. Same house, same walls. Rotate the framing ninety degrees and the answer flips completely.
The joists run north–south, so Wall A cuts across them. Every joist landing on or near that wall is handing it load. That's exactly what a bearing wall does.
Wall B runs parallel to the joists. It's probably just dividing space. Probably. If there's a beam, a post, or a second-floor wall stacked over it, parallel doesn't save you.
How to find your joist direction without opening anything: go to the basement or crawlspace and look up. In the attic, look down. Joists almost always run across the short dimension of the house. If your main floor is hardwood, the boards usually run perpendicular to the joists beneath them.
This is the part nobody draws for you before you commit. A bearing wall doesn't vanish. It gets replaced by a beam and two posts. Where those posts land is the thing worth arguing about while it's still on paper.
When people hear "we'll put a beam in," they picture one piece of lumber. It's actually a small assembly, and the expensive part is usually the one you can't see. Tap any number.
The width of the hole you want is the single biggest driver of the engineering. Small openings get a wood header and a weekend. Wide ones get steel, new footings, and a crew.
Most people start with the first and stop there, because the answer is "that's a partition, have fun." When it isn't, the other two get you to a permit.
The engineer comes out, reads the framing, checks what's above and below, and gives you a straight verbal answer on site. Written confirmation follows by email.
Beam sizing, post and footing details, temporary shoring plan, and the sealed letter your permit office and your contractor both need before anything comes down.
After the beam is in, we verify it was built to the detail and issue the closeout letter inspectors ask for at final. Also covers work a previous owner did without paperwork.
We also handle the rest of residential structural: foundation cracks, settlement, decks, additions, and pre-purchase opinions. See everything we inspect
Scapular Engineering, P.E. — Missouri licensure since 2012, residential structural work since 2014. No inspector-on-contract, no franchise, no report written by someone who never saw your house. If you have a question about your letter three months later, you're calling the person who wrote it.
A good contractor's instinct is usually right, and plenty of them have opened more walls than most engineers have. But your permit office doesn't accept instinct. Most St. Louis-area jurisdictions want a sealed letter from a licensed engineer before they'll issue for structural alteration.
There's also the liability question. If a contractor calls it wrong and your ceiling sags in two years, his general liability policy and an engineer's professional liability policy are very different instruments.
It happens more than you'd think, and it's usually fixable. We come out, assess what's actually carrying load now, and tell you whether you need a retrofit beam or whether you got lucky.
If you're selling and an inspector flagged unpermitted structural work, we also do the after-the-fact evaluation and closeout letter that resolves it on the record.
Inspection visits usually happen within 3 business days of booking, often sooner in the metro. The visit itself is 45 to 75 minutes for a typical single wall.
If you just need the determination, you get the verbal answer before we leave and written confirmation the next day. If you need the full removal design, the sealed package is 3 business days after the visit. Rush is available when a crew is standing around waiting.
Usually not. Most of what we need is visible from the basement, crawlspace, or attic, and that's where the framing shows itself. Access to those spaces matters more than opening drywall.
Occasionally a house hides its load path well enough that we ask for a small inspection opening, typically a twelve-inch square in the ceiling. We'll tell you on site rather than guessing.
No catch. The determination visit is a small, fast job for us, and a big share of them end with “that's a partition, you're fine,” which takes twenty minutes and saves you thousands.
The larger fees are for design work: sizing a beam, detailing posts and footings, drawing a shoring sequence, and putting a seal on all of it. That's engineering with real liability attached. You only pay for it if you actually need it.
Core, no travel charge: St. Louis City and County, St. Charles, Jefferson, and Franklin counties, plus the Metro East in Illinois.
Lincoln, Warren, Washington, and Ste. Genevieve counties — roughly anything inside sixty miles — carry a travel add-on quoted up front so it isn't a surprise. Farther out we still come; the where-we-work page has the honest breakdown.
An engineer stands in your house, reads the load path, and tells you straight: this wall goes, or this wall stays and here's what it costs to open it anyway.
Is It Load Bearing is the residential-structural arm of Scapular Engineering, LLC. The same PE seals load-bearing letters here, manufactured-home certifications at Midwest MFG Inspection, and aluminum-wiring certs at STL Alumiconn. One license, one $2M policy, one phone number.
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