It all comes down to if this is structural or not. If I'm just removing the wall that's within my abilities. If a beam needs to be installed then I would hire it out. If I need to hire it out the issue becomes what do I do for the kitchen replacement / soffit removal.....might need to get a permit for it all if an inspector is going to come romping around.
Your pictures and descriptions are making this worse. They are really not helping.
Your (proper) diagrams are. The wall is NOT load bearing.
However, the part you are calling a vault truss needs further discussion.
First off- the difference between a rafter and a truss... A rafter is a single timber component large enough to carry the load across the span. A TRUSS is made of smaller components engineered to work together and factory assembled. The gang nails (metal plate connectors) are indicative of trusses.
There is, however, 1 more important element of a truss. It ALWAYS involves triangulation. Your purple lines are a typical main truss.
Your yellow lines (vault truss) has no triangulation. Even your diagram shows only vertical "studs". If this is the case, it was built as what is known as a "gable truss". It is NOT designed to span ANYTHING. It is only designed to sit in a wall and give studs to nail to.
You can't cut a truss. Ever. If you cut any part of a truss, the entire truss fails. So, you can't cut out part of the vault truss to make a higher ceiling and leave a 2x4. You compromise the entire truss.
Which leads us to the biggest problem. You are missing the entire structural issue you are dealing with. The wall is not the issue- the kitchen ceiling is. As I am understanding it, your living room has a vaulted ceing, and the kitchen has a flat TRUSSED ceiling. Your intention is to raise the ceiling to match the LR. That means you intend to cut the kitchen trusses- you can't.
If you are JUST going to remove the wall, and leave the 2 ceiling heights where they are, you are golden. But if you want to raise the kitchen ceiling, you need professional help.
In reply to Enyar:
You are asking what you can get away with regarding permits. I am telling you what is required.
I assume that you have determined that there are no utilities in that wall.
I was going to do something similar but I learned that I would have leave a column to house some utilities.
SVreX wrote: Your pictures and descriptions are making this worse. They are really not helping. Your (proper) diagrams are. The wall is NOT load bearing. However, the part you are calling a vault truss needs further discussion. First off- the difference between a rafter and a truss... A rafter is a single timber component large enough to carry the load across the span. A TRUSS is made of smaller components engineered to work together and factory assembled. The gang nails (metal plate connectors) are indicative of trusses. There is, however, 1 more important element of a truss. It ALWAYS involves triangulation. Your purple lines are a typical main truss. Your yellow lines (vault truss) has no triangulation. Even your diagram shows only vertical "studs". If this is the case, it was built as what is known as a "gable truss". It is NOT designed to span ANYTHING. It is only designed to sit in a wall and give studs to nail to. You can't cut a truss. Ever. If you cut any part of a truss, the entire truss fails. So, you can't cut out part of the vault truss to make a higher ceiling and leave a 2x4. You compromise the entire truss. Which leads us to the biggest problem. You are missing the entire structural issue you are dealing with. The wall is not the issue- the kitchen ceiling is. As I am understanding it, your living room has a vaulted ceing, and the kitchen has a flat TRUSSED ceiling. Your intention is to raise the ceiling to match the LR. That means you intend to cut the kitchen trusses- you can't.
Ah! Fear not, I believe I've just caused too much confusion and eventually we will be on the same page.
I do not intend to touch the trusses. I do not intend to vault the ceiling in the kitchen. I only intend to remove the wall between the kitchen and the living room and also remove the soffits in the kitchen. Most of the kitchen ceiling will remain the same height. Only the outer edges where the soffit runs will change height but they will not be vaulted.
I'll put together a video of my wonderful attic and downstairs. I've become quite truss monkey and can crawl across the whole thing in a matter of minutes.
you need professional help.
I've been told this way too many times but normally in reference to my sanity.
iceracer wrote: I assume that you have determined that there are no utilities in that wall. I was going to do something similar but I learned that I would have leave a column to house some utilities.
There is one electrical outlet which I plan on either removing or relocating.
In reply to Enyar:
Glad to hear it.
Your wall is not load bearing.
AND...
...you need professional help! 
Looks like fun. Hopefully the wires you see going down the wall are ALL fed from within the attic, thus simple to junction together.
SVRex covered my ceiling height vs. "Don't cut a truss" concern already.
Assuming the blue lines are joices, I would double up the ceiling joices on either side of the removed wall. In my area, you need a permit when you alter the footprint, roof line or need to spend over $10,000. Talk to a professional just for piece of mind.
Enyar wrote:
This isn't the dialect thread, is it?
Truss not trust. Joist not joice.
Joices are two women named Joyce.
I trust Joices to hold my roof up.
Haha
you really need a permit in florida to remove a non load bearing interior wall? that sucks. around here they don't want to know unless we're touching electric, plumbing, or load bearing structure. and most of the time they could care less about that as long as we pay for a permit. except one community, where the building inspector told us we needed a permit to install cabinets, and that the homeowner who was doing her own tile backsplash would need a an electrical permit to install box extensions to get her outlets flush with the tile, and that we also needed a permit to blow our noses or fart upwind of a senior citizen.
as a professional, like paul, i recommend you play by the rules. do as i say, not as i do. i may or may not have pulled permits for rewiring my house and building my deck. when customers are involved though, if it's required it's acquired.
Your trusses appear to be 24" or greater on center. The purple truss is a flat truss right at the end of your kitchen above the wall in question. The next truss towards your living room is 24" away from the wall and has a vaulted bottom chord. That structure next to the purple truss simply supports 24" of your vaulted ceiling drywall that is in-between the first vaulted truss and the last flat truss. That structure likely loads into the wall you want to remove if it is not attached to the purple truss. I would think provided your truss spacing is constant that you would be successful anchoring it to the purple truss since the purple truss is designed to Carry a dead load on its bottom chord of a 24" span of ceiling ( provided it is identical in spacing and geometry to the trusses that span your kitchen ceiling and the spacing to the first vaulted truss is identical).
TLDR get professional help I'm an engineer interpreting your pictures. I am likely wrong and make no guarantees. I've been told I make these things more confused when I try to explain them.
In reply to patgizz:
Dude, FL has licenses for painters! It's crazy.
Rather than start my own thread I'm gonna hijack yours Enyar. I am 99.9999999999999999% sure this isn't a load bearing all here. Just need some extra eyes on it before I start the demo.
Wall in question.
Other side in the kitchen. Access hole added so I can see what is up with the joists in this area.
Another shot. Ceiling is 7 foot in the kitchen vs 8 everywhere else.
Here's what I found. Just some 2x4's spanning joists so the wall could have something to nail to at the top.
As you can see, the wall doesn't run down a joist.
Doesn't even really touch the 2x4's spanning the joist gap. Has about 1/8-1/4" clearance.
At the corner you can see that the other wall also is not touching any joists. it's soo far off I'm 100% sure it's not load bearing.
Just wanted to get another set of eyes on it. Thanks guys.
Single top plate, gap to anything crossing it, distance from parallel framing, seems like trusses above - from this side of the internet, that looks to be a non-bearing partition.
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