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I am in the process of replacing the subfloor, a few joists, sill plate and header board. With the help of this community I have either worked out a plan or completed most of the parts of this task. From what I have read, to replace the subfloor under my load bearing walls, I need to brace it, pull the footer and hammer it back in when the floor is in. What is the best way to brace this wall so I can get a full 4x8 sheet of plywood under it?

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Edit I added a pic of the rafters in the attic, the row before the vent is sitting directly on that wall. Pic with the purple board is of the top of wall, there is another 2x4 hidden by ceiling. Obviously pic of bottom is just that.

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  • Why replace the subfloor? Is it rotten? I doubt the wall is a load bearing wall. I don’t see any supports under the wall.
    – Lee Sam
    Jan 31, 2020 at 1:32
  • There was a water issue and it rotted a few parts under it. Looking in the attic the joists from the peak go straight down onto the the header that the upper 2x4 is nailed to. They is why i assumed it was loads bearing.
    – Alex
    Jan 31, 2020 at 1:46
  • Could you provide a photo looking at the ceiling? Also focus on the lower and upper areas we cannot see enough, if load bearing I would put a temp wall next to that wall take out the rotten sections repair and replace then remove the temp wall. I might put a temp wall in even if it was not a load bearing if I was trying to keep Sheetrock or plaster from cracking but at this point we really cannot see enough.
    – Ed Beal
    Jan 31, 2020 at 3:44

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If that wall is not a load bearing wall, and from your pictures it sure does not look like it, you could consider just dismantling it temporarily. Then just pull up the bottom plate. This would leave you fully open to replace the sub-flooring after which you can just rebuild that short piece of wall. It is only 5 studs and less and about two additional sheets of new drywall.

From your other pictures it certainly appears that you have quite a bit of rebuilding work to do already so re-doing that wall would not be too much additional.

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  • I am quite comfortable with rebuilding the wall of we can determine that it is not load bearing. I just don't want to cut the wall out and have the roof collapse lol. Most of this repair i feel very confident about doing i just want to make sure i am doing it right, safely and the most efficient way.
    – Alex
    Jan 31, 2020 at 5:44
  • @Alex Don’t take out the whole wall at one time. Take out 2 studs (32”) at a time...replace the subfloor and build the wall in 32” segments. (BTW, I see the new pics...what is the jack supporting?)
    – Lee Sam
    Jan 31, 2020 at 6:21
  • The jack is not supporting anything right now, i used it in tandem with another one to take pressure off one joist at a time while replacing them.
    – Alex
    Jan 31, 2020 at 6:37
  • @Alex - If you are concerned about the struts under the rafters that are sitting on this wall you could surely go in the attic and add two additional struts to the specific rafters. These would go down at an angle from under the rafter and sit on the same resting place as the adjacent struts. This would easily spread any stress (if any) on that short wall. You could make these temporary or simply choose to leave them in place. If you remove the wall just leave its upper double plate in place.
    – Michael Karas ♦
    Jan 31, 2020 at 11:42
  • Just to learn a little, what makes you confident that the wall is not load bearing? I thought the the double header, perpendicular to joists and king and Jack stud around door were clear indicators of being load bearing.
    – Alex
    Jan 31, 2020 at 15:04

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