Most cost effective way to reveal a supporting wall

I'll assume there is a room above. Firstly to determine if wall is supporting need to understand the following: - is the wall supporting joists from above. - does the wall continue into the room above. - if wall continues is it solid or timber above. So re supporting joists, this can be identified by making a hole in the ceiling around 300 mm square. The joist directions will be obvious. Does the wall continue to room above can be determined either by whether the above wall is in line, and if so is it timber or solid. If the wall continues above then the wall below is supporting this. From this you will know if the wall you wish to remove is supporting ie joists and or wall above. Assuming it is supporting you, or a builder, ask for a structural engineer to visit and calculate the loads and produce a report indicating the type of beam and size required. Also support for the steel beam needs to be considered. Typically it must sit and hard engineering bricks, often 220 mm in length, structural engineer to determine. This may mean you need to add a vertical support pillar. Finally remember the steel will need fire protection and, if you dont want to see it and it can't fit in the ceiling void, will need to be boxed in using double clad plasterboard. This work should be inspected and approved by Building Control and they will issue a certificate of approval - for your peace of mind plus useful when/if selling the property. Hope this is useful. Newcam Ltd, Sutton, Ely, Cambs

The best and most safe way is to consult with a qualified structural engineer. Making an assumption or trying to use a builder to do a guess work has it's own consequences. There are three issues 1. Identifying an internal wall is load bearing or not. This might not be a too difficult as any builder with basic knowledge can tell you if the wall is carrying floor joists or not. 2. Sizing of a new beam and checking the local stresses in the end wall. If you remove a wall and add a new beam, structural engineer needed to do a proper calculation to select a beam with right depth to suit your head height and also safe to stand the load. Secondly you need pad stones in your end walls to distributes the load on larger area otherwise it will crush the brick right underneath the beam. Again that needed to be calculated and checked by a qualified structural engineer. 3. Overall stability of structure People often don't realise this as there is load sharing mechanism exist in all structure and sometime removing too many internal wall can also impact on it. It can effect the overall stability of the structure or some time it can over stress the foundations underneath. So answer is simple, Consult a qualified structural engineer. Cost of hiring a engineer certainly overweigh's it's benefits.

The best thing to do is consult a structural engineer. They’ll work out loads, bearings, spans and specifications.