Attic Structural Support

The structural framing beneath your roof rafters or trusses will determine if you can add an attic bedroom and what it might look like.

Attic structural support. Domestic roof construction is the framing and roof covering which is found on most detached houses in cold and temperate climates. Before you take advantage of this storage space take some time to assess the potential space and the potential problems your attic may hold in store for you. Structural support is a part of a building or structure providing the necessary stiffness and strength in order to resist the internal forces vertical forces of gravity and lateral forces due to wind and earthquakes and guide them safely to the ground. Attic storage is possible in most houses for stashing away a few boxes and empty suitcases.

Having an escape ladder in clear view is always a good idea. Here we have a wood framed gable roof. Here each square foot of roof system delivers 50 pounds of live load and 15 pounds of dead load 65 psf total to the structural support system. Let s consider a basic gable wood roof framing design.

If the joists are larger they might support attic flooring but the only reliable way to know for sure is to have a structural engineer take a look at your attic support system. Continuing on from part 3. It s 16 2x6s on 24 center with a 1x6 at the peak no collar ties no vertical support depending on the roof pitch and rafter span vertical support may not be required on all roofs but you are correct the rafters are over spanned. External loads actions of other bodies that act on buildings cause internal forces forces and couples by the rest of the structure in.

The image below shows a cross section of our simple 12 x 13 house from the joist span tables section of this tutorial. An attic bedroom requires both a window and a staircase to the level beneath. Some of these can support the roof and prevent ridge sagging and wall spreading. Floor beam span tables of residential structural design we will now look at roof rafter and beam design.

Such roofs are built with mostly timber take a number of different shapes and are covered with a variety of materials. I called out insufficient structural support in this attic space what do you guys think. Remember these loads are distributed uniformly over the entire surface of the roof.