Walls – ny way to tell if these walls are load bearing from the blueprints

EDIT: On second look, the drawing actually tells us. There's a note box to the right: TYP BEARING WALL 2x4 stud 16" O.C. on Continuous footing. The dashed line around the wall indicates the footing.

ORIGINAL: If I'm reading the drawing correctly, IT DEFINITELY IS.

For the sake of this discussion, north is the top of the drawing.

There appears to be a beam running E-W from the post to the East wall. There are no notes on the west wall talking about a beam pocket. This leads me to believe that the dark line following the same path as the beam is simply a dimension line, not a continuation of the beam. So the beam does not extend westward towards the area you want to deal with.

This makes the total span in the area you're looking at 36 feet. Far too long for 2 x 12's, which means the wall you want to remove is definitely supporting the joists.

Even if the beam does continue, I would take great care. 20 feet is about the max for a joist span. This job calls for a professional engineer to assess the situation.

The solution is probably to dig a footer where the doorway is now, and put up a steel post and raise another short steel or paralam beam where the wall is.

This involves building temporary stud walls on either side of the existing wall to support the load while you're working. You'll need to find a contractor who has done this type of work before.

OK, I've had remodelers tell my wife that those walls are not load bearing (they didn't go into the attic).

Meanwhile, I've had a friend from church with framing experience look closely in the attic and say I definitely need to transfer the load being carried by these boards and walls and have at least one board to keep the roof from racking away from the rest of the house.

While drawing the diagram in my heavily edited question, I came to see how there must be some load on these few vertical boards, so I'm going that route recommended by my friend.

I'll cut a few boards to go from the ridge-line beam to the nearby load bearing hallway wall and closet walls, toenail them in, then begin removing the existing partitioning walls below.