HELP Advise for construction prop under sagging roof

[AGenericFool]

Hey,

first off I am new here so Admins if this is like in the wrong forum section just move it/hit me up to reopen.
Lil introduction, I am in my early twenties trying to fix a shed at least twice as old as me and despite gathering a lot of experience around home repairs I have found nothing on the topic.
Also english is my second language, please keep that in mind regarding my descriptions.

So I got this really old shed that is connected to a garage, both are wood constructions with a brick-tile-roof. The garage has a concrete flooring but the shed has not.
After cleaning the shed I noticed that the lets call it 4mx5m shed with the sloped east brick-tile-roof has two structural support beams missing and a heavily slanted roof.
The roof tiles are interlocking and not connected to each other and nothing holds them together except gravity and their form factor. They are held up by a "lattice" of beams. 4 almost 10cm thick beams in one direction and 4 7 ish cm thick beams in the other hold most of the weight. The 4 supports went trough the middle of the shed, but two must have fallen over in the past, they were/are jsut being held by the pressure between a stone on the floor and the roof-beam.
The slanted roof part is where one of the beams was and one of the 7cm thick beams has heavily cracked and slanted under the weight of the roof without support under it. Since now the beams were WAY bigger than the space they were in after the roof has slanted idk at least 10cm on that part, I put in a construction prop (I think that's what ou call ya know steel beams whose height you can adjust by mm's) where the slanting was worst and just made it so high that it a) stays cause its wedged in there and b) I saw the roof move the tiniest bit and heard the wood creak.

And I heard you should not just instantly crank it all the way up since it might for example fracture the beam and make it all come crashing down.

So my question is: How much should I crank up the construction prop and how often? I searched for like 10min and found nothing useful on the topic/for my situation.

Regarding heat and light etc. which I know are factors in the expansion of materials, like wood. The shed has a big hole in the back currently, where wind comes trough and the temperature changes together with the outside, and also light shines in trough there and there is a window where more light comes in. And for temperature reference I am in rhineland palatine in germany, it's 12° and sunny right now, but it's probably gonna be -1° and snowing next week, same-ish til last frost next month.

And as a followup, should I just leave the construction prop there when it's all up there? Or should I carefully use the old post and jam it in there? And should I just fully replace the roof + beams? Cause that is the last thing I want to do, but at the same time I want to, ut am not sure how to structurally support the roof beams more so this wont happen again easily, without taking off the roof. Cause ya know that heavily fractured but still somehow holding together beam is worrying. Shoulder I jsut put in mroe supports? Can I attach a beam to/alongside the existing one and make them share the weight and increase the structural stability?

My current main goals are a) keep it from fully breaking b) make it safe to work in the shed especially on the backwall without worry c) make it all stable enoguh so the next storm that flings a medium/big branch ontop does not trash the place

Also please keep in mind that none of these are true "beams", nothing is truly straight, or uniform or whatever. Like all of this is made out of thinner and bigger whole treetrunks, and large branches, some still have parts of bark on them. Saying this stuff is twice as old as me is a heavy understatement. Nobody knows how old this truly is, all I know is that this was a lot of land with a big shed ontop more than 300 years ago and then they built it up little by little by little by little and now it's almost a small homestead. I'd guess that shed to be around 100years old if I had to pull something out of my hat, more than 50 for sure, cause I know the prev. owner who is over 50 and it stood like now before he was even born.


Thanks for reading and the advice in advance and have a good one dear reader


tldr "How much should I crank up a construction prop and how often? Under a 10ish cm sunk brick-tile-roof on a pretty cracked up wood-beam. In a shed that gets a lot of light, wind and temperature differences."

 

[bud16415]

Welcome to the forum and it is nice to find someone so far away as a member.



We will host any photos you may like to provide and they will help a lot in providing help with your project. Some taken inside and also outside.



It is hard to advise on jacking a broken roof without seeing it. If there is risk of it coming down and you will be doing the work from inside I would advise extreme caution. Maybe even inserting some safety structure first before you start lifting.



Post some photos and we will be better able to help.

 

[AGenericFool]

Hey,

alright so I took some photos for reference from the kinda crowded inside, *tried* to get different angles.

That non vertical wood beam kinda jammed in there is the old beam that once must have stood where the construction prop is now and I just jammed it in there for a tiny lil relief of strain next to the construction prop, and to feel better. As you can see in one of the pictures, further "right" from the non-fully-vertical beam/pole I jammed in there, there is another one just like it, that is holding up the roof, and stands perfectly straight, to the "right" of that is another one just like it.
So trough the middle of the shed form left to right there is a row of 4 poles, 1. the construction prop, 2. the pole that originally stood there, which now does not fit perfectly vertically since the roof is too low, and the 3. (which is on one picture) and 4. (whcih is on no picture) two of the original poles whcih are still standing and helping keeping up the roof.


Once again, my question, I know you should "slowly" crank up the construction prop height, but what does that mean?

1mm a day? 1mm a week? 1mm a month?

Also no, I have not moved it up yet after putting it in like a week ago. And I probably would welcome any other tips that might help and fit with this lil project.

Have a good one and thanks for reading dear reader

 

[AGenericFool]

One image did not wanna upload so here is it subsequently delivered

 

[bud16415]

First off thanks for posting the photos they show a lot of detail.



Secondly I’m not a pro, just an old guy that was your age a very long time ago and understands what you are trying to do to save the space.



When I was your age I had a lot of ambition and not a lot of funding. I would have likely tried something similar to what you are doing. Now that I’m older and hopefully wiser I will give you my honest advice as to what I would do to do the job so it will last the rest of your life.



I would start with removing the brick tile roof and carefully saving them to be reused. I would then start assessing what was left to save and what to replace. From what I’m seeing in the photos is a great deal of it is way undersize to start with and spaced not nearly close enough together to truly support the roof load of those heavy tiles. You need to start at the ground and inspect what you have for rot. There is no reason to put a lot of time, money and effort into what’s above if what is holding it is also failing.



It looks to be owner built from what he had on hand and in the USA our codes would likely say take it down totally.



That said if you are going to just try and jack it up my advice would be to add a lot of new posts and really not try and straighten the sag you have but just try and stabilize and support.



If you jack it you will know when you went far enough as it will start lifting at other places. Old wood being bent takes the shape of what is supporting it and won’t want to bend right back and may never return to straight.



Again my advice is for the most part it would be best to start over. That’s just my opinion and others can comment with their thoughts.

 

[AGenericFool]

Thanks for your reply @bud16415 and I'll answer you right away and maybe give some extra info for other potentials commentators.

So I'll take that as a 1mm per month? Half joking

Your definitly right on a lot, without the current prices, especially lumber (up over 200% from dec 2021) I would have probably already begun what you described, but currently I am not looking for that. Also I am actually fine legality/code wise, simply because there is no chance for risk/damage to the neighbours, if it were like 2m closer to the property edge I'd probably have problems tho. And yeah they definitly did this themselves.

In the end I want to "save this space" yes, but I currently have a life, a job, a side-hustle, a garden that is being built up and demands a lot of work especially now close to last frost, the toolshed+workbench that is close to getting fixed etc.pp. so it's more of a long-term goal.

I *really* want to do this job so it lasts another 100 years. But I wanna do that in like 1-2 years minimum.

Right now, after trying to comprehend how this held up for so long despite the supports falling away, I just want to make it hold for these 1-2years and not ya know crash together, take part of the ol garage beside it with it, ruin a trillion brick-tiles, smash the wood and ol concrete mixer inside, create way more busy work clearing rubble etc.pp.

But I still thank you for your message, tips and opinion. I'll definitly keep it in mind, and probably try to soon impliment the part about "add a lot of new posts".

Have a good one

 

[bud16415]

If you are only storing small items in the shed a row of poles down the center wouldn’t be too bad. If you want to put a tractor or something then that’s different.



I had an old garage that needed taken down before it fell down but wanted like you to keep it going a while longer. This was close to 50 years ago and I cut a bunch of 6” trees and used the trunks as poles by wedging them in the weak places. It took the snow load and worked ok. Best part it didn’t cost anything except my time.

 

[mabloodhound]

That beam you are jacking up with the temporary post has failed and really needs to be replaced. I would add a new beam made from 2" x 10" (what ever the Euro mm sizes are) and doubled up, from the studs just in front of that split beam, across the full length of the shed. This will support those cross timbers and you can use shims to fill any spaces between the new timber and the old beams. You won't get the roof level & flat again unless you rebuild it like Bud said. But it can be stabalized in place.