Dale, thanks, always good to have someone else's eyes looking at the same problem.
This wall is technically not a load bearing wall. The house is 15 feet wide and 30 feet long. The floor joists span the 15 feet. In the basement there are no supports, the joists just rest on the foundation walls. However, they do double up the joists every fourth joist. In roughly the middle of the house, front to back, there is a wall that spans the 15 feet and has a large archway in it. It wouldn't be a supporting wall because it is parallel to the joists. There is a wall perpendicular to the wall I just described, it runs from that wall to the back of the house and separates the back half of the house into left and right halves, kitchen and dining room. Yes, it runs perpendicular to the joists but only those joists in the back half of the house, so I wouldn't really expect that it is a load bearing wall either. the only issue might be that typically, in these old houses, when they built the bathrooms, they just dumped cement between the floor joists. SO there may be a bit more weight around that area. Next, the wall is constructed with the 2X4 studs on edge making it a thin wall. Lastly, many of the 20 units have had varying amounts of this wall removed. Some have had the big archway wall removed. I don't think any have had both walls fully removed. Snaking some PEX around may do the trick although would the drain stack be a problem? Also, is PEX rated for the comparatively high temps of hot water heat? -- Blue skies. Dan Rossi Carnegie Mellon University. E-Mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Tel: (412) 268-9081
