some roof questions

The building inspector is aware of the 2nd story , and my roof plans. I haven't raised the question about a permit being pulled. It's deffinatly not original , as you said earlier , the wiring used in spots is way newer. Also some old 2x4 roof joists are still in the ceiling above the kitchen. They just abandoned them there as they laid the 12"O.C. 2x6 joists. The majority of older houses in this area used to be summer cottages , which eventaly became houses and additions scabed on to additions. I'm a couple miles from lake Erie beaches.

Last night I did demo a wall . The wall with the door seperating the kitchen and dining area wasn't load bearing. What a differance. Above the wall are 4 joists , although 1 of them is in 2 pieces? The other 3 are solid wall to wall. The upstairs beedroom wall is directly over it.






As far as the double and triple joists in the living room go , I figured they did that because the length of the span? Two of the double joists are actually 3 joists on one wall , but somewhere above the ceiling one joist stops and its only a double on the other wall , so I just drew them in as double joists. Over the living room they sit on shims , maybe 1/2" , and are toenailed into the wall. They are also nailed into a board running perpendicular , I believe running the length of the walls.

These are the walls I'd like to remove. The red walls are the ones I want gone now. The blue walls will be down the road if I can afford an addition and move the stairs.

Red wall #1 I would like to turn into a wall that is about 3' high . Wall #2 I want gone. I want to open up the red portion of wall #3 to make a wider entry way. Wall #4 I'd like to open up , and build a new exterior wall to make the porch an interior room.

I was looking at a carpenters work the other day on the job and questioning him. He removed a load bearing wall and installed a beam in the actual floor space , cutting the joists , and butting them into the beam. I din't know you could do that. That's gotta be weaker than having the joists sit on the beam? Obviously i wouldn't be able to hide the entire beam with that method due to 2x6 joists , but I'm just raising the question. I have 2 weeks off so maybe I can do some of this work.

The double looks like old construction campared to the rest.
Yes you can buty beams in floor and use steel hangers to hang the joist from them.
The problem is the weight, and tthis is where you should have the engineer look it over. Floors joists should stop on at a bearing wall or beam that has solid bearing. Depending on the weight some time a footing has to go below the floor in the basement. even if there is a footing there it may not be big enough for the added load
#1 carrys floor joists above dining room
#2 carrys floor joists above living room alcove
#3 carrys joists above living room
#4 A header over a 5ft opening would work, Adding the outside wall only works if you have bearing below it. And would be better for the roof.
I think you need the engineer.

I will contact an engineer before I tackle any of that. Thanks for all your help Neil , ill let you know what happens.

http://www.criterium-ferrari.com/
Some one like this could be helpfull.

great advice Neil, just having a professional look at what you are going to do.... makes everything go smoother in the long run. They may even find something you forgot, or even have another idea you could do with less cost in the long run.

Hire the Pro, $$$ well spent. And if it sin't , ask for your $$ back. Mention that up front, and have a discussion about how they can help you.
Good luck!!

Nice link Neal. I may call them , seems like exactly what I need. I'll keep you posted.

I was just hoping they were close to you. I'm sure you could find more like them.

Reposting all your drawings and photos and anything elso have might be helpful.

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buffalo said:

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So I'm back to the original plan of just tackeling the inlaw roof . The walls between living room/bedroom and kitchen/bathroom are load bearing . I've already taken out the kitchen/living room. I peeked into the attic last week its all 2x4 stick build except the joists are 2x6. It's full of a bunch of yucky old ,blown in looking , insulation. I want to make this one big masterbed , maybe put a half bath in there. I was thinking about a big master bath , but we really don't need that I suppose .

So the plan is once the heating season is over I demo the interior and roof , leaving only the exterior walls. Then set trusses , roof , and I have the summer to drywall/wire/paint ect. I was thinking about building 2x4 walls over the existing ones for 2x the insulation.

If you add the walls inside then you could add to the existing walls to make them full height, that wiyulkd make the stiff enough.. Except you have to be carefull, if you don't end up raising the other roof, you don't want the inlaw roof to be high than the house and that may be why it is lower, in that case, I would look at sissor trusses and leave the wall height alone. The truss company would want to know how thick your walls are for sissor trusses.
I guess at this point all you can do with the house is draw up the plans, showing the exsisting 2x6 floor and see if they will let you get away with it.
Where I am you wouldn't need a permit to repair the roof on the suite.
In some areas there is a dollar value that a home owner can get a permit for, so you might to do it as unfinished space.

You said you had been doing some beam work, remember to keep in mind where the load is going in the basement. If the origanal wall were only carring the ceiling you may need to double up some floor joist below.

Yea I need a permit . I wouldn't need a permit if it was only shingle work. It's somting like 100$ plus 5$ per 1000 spent so whatever. I haven't touched any load bearing walls in the main structure . Good idea about making the walls higher , haven't thought about that.

Have any advise on how to size beams for load bearing walls? Is like to have a plan set , so when I run it buy an engineer its basically.done and he just has to approve it.

The height difference with the main house would be the only question. As far as sizing beams, above my pay grade. I can find span charts and figure live and dead loads and snow loads but seldem get it right because the engineers are looking at a lot more or should be, they don't like it when you over size the beam too. Didn't make sence to me until he explained, he had required a 5.5" x 9.25" beam and we installed the 5.5" x 12" that the lumber yard delivered. He said some day some engineer will look at that beam and think he can add (X) more weight to it and if someone did that they would be overloading the foundation and footing as they were designed for the smaller beam.

In your basement it looks like everthing up the middle is being carried by some steel and wooden posts. If that is all there is then the walls running the other way upstairs that are bearing the floor above or the floor that you would like to use up there. Then the beam will want to run full distance so the load is landing abaove the foundation wall and the center beam in the basement.

I'm starting to make a material list. As far as gutters go , is there a type that has a flange attached to the gutter that rides up the roof? Then you could ice and water shield over that flange? If not what style do you recommend?

Usually the roofer is up there first, if there is something like that, I have't seen it.
When you have figured your list, add 30 length of 2x4.

http://freezeblock.com/
You should be able to solve ice damming with ventulation.

Hello all , especially Nealtw! Who has been a huge help and great teacher!

I figured I'd stop back and beg for some more help! So I basically did nothing structural since I last visited. I spent my money on getting natural gas brought in , new hot water tank , new furnace. There were some close calls on getting oil delivered with my driveway and snow , not to mention the sky high prices. Filled 4x at 700$ last winter! So I installed forced air and ductwork . 2 stage variable speed and a direct vent hot water tank. Now I have no need for. Chimneys.

So you might have seen on the news we had a killer snow storm about a month ago. Well it broke my house , lol. I shoveled for 2 days straight on my roof. I'd say I got about 7' of snow. So I had a couple contractors come out and they were kinda lost. As Neal said , I needed a structural engineer. He was out last week.

Unfortunately some rot was found in some joists that broke and insurance is only going to cover a fraction of the damage. My plan is to rip off the second story and rebuild. My engineer at initial inspection believes it won't be a problem. One plus is he is going to let me draw up my as builds to save me a bit of cash. So most work is on hold until I get a set of stamped drawings.

I do have one area , the workshop behind the garage , that I would like to adress now. I'd say half the joists cracked , all bowed if nothing else , alot! I'm worried if that goes it will further damage other areas.

So let's deal with the garage. You wrote joists, did you mean rafters?
2x4, 2x6 ?
length?
sitting on solid walls that sit on foundation or?