Can the structural stability be checked without building plans?

Hello first of all,

I am new here and hopefully in the right thread

So, briefly for your understanding: we have a house with a relatively small kitchen and a huge living room...

Now my wife wants to remove the wall between the living room and the kitchen to have an open kitchen and thus one large, combined room

In the bathroom, we are planning the same. There we want to connect the separate toilet with the bathroom to create a larger bathroom!

So we would need to have two walls removed. Now, the thing is, we don't have any floor plan, building plan, etc. and of course we don't know if these walls are load-bearing, which is crucial for the floor plan.

Can we somehow find out ourselves if these walls have a load-bearing function or not? - That would be the cheapest option. If not, who should I turn to? Can only a structural engineer or an architect do that? Are there flat rates for this, or what costs should one expect?

Thank you very much

Hi,

What wall thickness do the walls have? And how do they sound when knocked on? Load-bearing walls are usually constructed starting at a raw wall thickness of about 18 cm. Walls of lesser thickness, meaning thinner walls (these can be simple brick walls or even plasterboard walls), are generally built after the concrete floor slab is poured, so they are not load-bearing but purely partition walls. These, but especially plasterboard walls, tend to sound hollow!

However, if the walls possibly serve as covering for water or electrical lines, then you would need to take that into account as well...

Regards

Ps: If you have pictures, it's best to post them right here so that potential professionals can get an idea. This will save you many questions you would otherwise have to answer again.