ônon-load bearingö CMU

[boffintech]

I hear the phrase “non-load bearing” in reference to CMU walls a lot. This occurs mostly when contractors are trying to weasel out of fixing CMU walls they forgot to place the rebar in, forgot to properly consolidate the grout in, or placed the CMU in 25ºF weather without heating the ingredients of the mortar/grout.

Please correct me if I am wrong but just about any exterior CMU wall is “load bearing” because it resists lateral (wind) loads. Is it accurate to refer to a CMU wall with 0 vertical load but with potential wind/seismic loads as “non-load bearing”?

OK, interior partition walls, I'll give that as non-load bearing, but exterior...?

 

[minorchord2000]

The term "load bearing" actually refers to whether the wall supports a roof load. A typical CMU load bearing wall will support steel or wood members which bear directly on the wall or on a ledger beam. If the framing is parallel to the wall, the wall actually carries a very small roof load but for this case, the wall is considered "non load bearing".

The wind loading on a wall does not change whether or not the wall is load bearing. For load bearing walls, the wind or seismic load on the wall is a load case to be considered.

For screen walls, (none load bearing), wind and seismic forces will be the main forces the wall has to resist.

 

[archeng59]

load bearing CMU walls can be used to support floor loads, or any other gravity load, condition.

 

[UcfSE]

We typically refer to NLB cmu as cmu which supports only its own weight and the weight of finishes for gravity. That doesn't exclude cmu resisting transverse loads from being built correctly. If it's wrong, make 'em fix it.