Notes on load-bearing walls

A wall that carries weight cannot be removed simply because it is inconvenient. The first job on any renovation is telling the structural walls from the partitions, and the honest way to do that is to look above the ceiling rather than to guess from the floor plan. Guessing is cheap right up until the moment the roof sags.

Partition walls, by contrast, are there to divide space and nothing more. You can take one out on a Saturday with a reciprocating saw and a skip, and the building will not notice. The distinction matters because the cost of being wrong is asymmetric: removing a partition you thought was structural wastes a survey, while removing a structural wall you thought was a partition wastes the house.

The same asymmetry shows up in software, which is why the interesting question is rarely "can this be changed" but "what leans on it".

See also notes on beams and the author.