HELP! Builder extended a room and trusses are not on a wall??

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jrut27

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We are having a house built and as part of our original contract, we extended the back bedroom. From the outside, that room has it's own minipitch that connects to the large part of the roof, but from the inside something is not right. The larger part of the roof comes down to where the original wall would have been before the extension....then the roof is flat at 8ft height where we extended it (4ft out). The giant roof trusses that go all the way to the peak of the house (above the bonus room) are not resting on an cinderblock wall.... they are attached to the mini trusses in the flat part of the extended wall. This is confusing to explain, but here is a picture from the outside and you can see the extended room on the right. The extension on the left is the 3rd car garage. On the inside picture, you can see the major roo pitch come to just outside the window and then a flat part 4ft wide to the outter wall. Should this have passed framing inspection? Did the builder do this correctly? Originally he explained to us that the wall would start at 8ft and then vault like the other bedrooms. Then after the trusses were put on, they explained to us that the ceiling in that room was a detail no one thought of!!

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Engineered trusses get there strength from built in tri-angles so the inside seldem matches the outside. Sometimes the design plans that are drawn up don't match what the truss company has to build to handle the loads. If you are building with permits, the trusses came with an engineers instruction on placement and the building inpector would have inspected it before the insulation went in. Your builder should still have the instructions and with that he will have a drawing of every truss.
 
ok thanks, so we don't have to worry about them not being supported properly because of the change...

Could they have redone the trusses so that the vault started at the wall instead of 4ft in? It looks awkward and makes the room seem small. We paid $6,800.00 for the extension. thanks
 
It's a shame they didn't go over this with you ahead of the job and they may have called this style by name which you didn't understand. It's not the normal scisser truss, but it might be what's the latest thing in your area.
They have a few problems, they might be trying to address with this design. The heel cut is the height from the top of the wall to the bottom of the sheeting on the outside and the tail of the trusses have to match the old roof and newer requirements for insulation may need a higher heel cut and giving you a flat section may allow that to be done.
I'm just guessing but I would bet that if you ask, they will have what sounds like a good reason.
On the framing plan for the addition there should be a notation there for the trusses to be vaulted, have a look and see if there are more notations there that might discribe what you have.
 
Without seeing what is above the drywall it is impossible to tell if it should have past framing inspection. There could be a large header up inside the ceiling to hold up the trusses.
 
The truss for what we see inside is called a flat vault, but that dosn't match the photo we see of the outside. The outside is a hip roof, the inside is a gable end with a window below.

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I think the gable end with the window is not in the bump out. It is in the right wall that is not visible in the outside picture.
 
The hip end on the outside would be all the little peices talked about. To turn the corners it does take 12 to 20 peices.
 
With the hip roof on the bump out the only way this could work is if there is a beam in the ceiling right where the sloping ceiling joins the flat ceiling. There is room for the beam as it takes up the height caused by the trusses sitting on top of the wall and extending out forming the overhang, so back a few feet there is some additional height. I think the new special truss must be hanging from the beam with something like joist hangers and on the other side the ceiling joists are hung for the flat section. Then the hip is framed above and into the truss roof forming the valley.

He should ask the builder if this is what is done. Or remove a sheet of drywall and take a look.
 

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