Hello! Bought a farm about a year ago and am currently in full swing renovating and converting an old pigsty so that it can house horses instead. After the pig pens have been removed, several tons of straw burned, and the ceiling torn down, I am faced with the task of achieving sufficient ceiling height for horses.
As it is now, the ceiling height is about 2.20m, and between the ceiling beams, up to the edge of the brick wall, it is about 2.45m. The ambition is to have at least 3m in ceiling height, but preferably open up to the ridge.
I have looked at the roof's construction and can deduce that it is some form of ridge beam truss; I can read that these should be self-supporting, and then it should not be an issue to remove the old ceiling beams completely? If so, the old roof supports should be braced across.
Alternatively, the second option would be to raise the old ceiling beams and brick them up in the same way as it is currently constructed. Is this really necessary? There will not be any straw or hay stored above the stable anyway, so there should be no downward load.
I see now that this became a very long thread start, and I feel like I'm just spinning my wheels right now, having a hard time finding a designer who is willing to calculate this =(.
