On a floor framing plan, not every wall is holding the floor up. Some walls are load-bearing — joists and beams rest on them and pass the floor's weight down through them. Others are just partitions dividing space. Telling them apart, and marking them clearly, is one of the most important things a framing plan communicates.
New to the drawing itself? Start with what a floor framing plan is, or the comprehensive floor framing plan guide.
Bearing walls in red at the ends of the joist run; partitions in grey
What "load-bearing" means here
A load-bearing wall is one that carries weight from above — in this case, the floor's joists or the beams those joists land on — down to the foundation or the structure below. Remove it, and the floor above loses support. A non-bearing partition can usually be moved or removed without structural consequence (though that is always a job for an engineer to confirm).
Why joist direction decides bearing
Here is the key relationship: joists bear on the walls at the two ends of their span. Picture joists running across a room — each one rests on a wall at each end. Those end walls are doing the structural work; they are load-bearing by default. The walls running parallel to the joists typically carry little or no floor load.
This is why, in a preliminary layout, changing the joist direction changes which walls are bearing. It is also why getting the span direction right early matters — see how to draft a preliminary floor framing plan for that step.
How bearing walls are marked
Drawing conventions vary between offices and standards, but the goal is always the same — make the structural walls unmistakable:
- A heavier line weight than partitions.
- A hatch or fill along the wall.
- A note or tag such as "bearing".
- A distinct colour on screen.
In Framing Plan, bearing walls are drawn in red, and they default to the walls the joists span onto — so the load path is visible the moment you set the joist direction. You can override the defaults whenever the design needs an interior wall, a parallel wall, or a specific wall to carry load.
Interior and overridden bearing walls
Real layouts are rarely a single clean span. Common cases where you override the defaults:
- Central bearing wall — joists are spliced or lapped over an interior wall to shorten the span. That interior wall becomes load-bearing.
- Beam transfer — a beam gathers joist loads and lands on a particular wall or column, making that point load-bearing.
- Offsets and L-shapes — different parts of the floor span different directions, so the bearing pattern is not uniform.
Marking these correctly on the preliminary plan saves confusion later and gives the engineer a clear starting point.
A note on safety
Identifying and sizing bearing walls for construction is engineering work. A preliminary framing plan is a layout and communication aid — it shows your intent for which walls bear, but the final determination of load paths, wall framing, and any beams or headers must be confirmed by a qualified engineer for your project and local code.
Try it
Set a joist direction and watch the bearing walls update in red automatically, then override any wall you need. Open the framing studio to lay out your bearing walls in the browser.