Well, I have found yet another thing that the previous owner of the house messed up that needs to be fixed.
The garage has been remodeled and a load-bearing wall has been removed.
Once upon a time, the garage had dimensions of 7x3m with a regular gable roof made of raw board and roofing felt.
The owner wanted to expand the garage to 7x5m and simply put up a new outer wall 2m from the first one.
After this, he laid a beam from the new wall and up onto the old roofing felt and one between the new wall and the old roof truss, no overlap, just end to end, end grain to end grain.
On top of this, he laid new raw board and new roofing felt.
No problems so far.
Then he casually removed 5m of the old 7m outer wall and left an area of 25m2 hanging freely.
He divided the new garage into two parts with a simple wall placed in between two of the roof trusses.
I bought the house a few owners later and checked that the wall was not load-bearing and removed it as I needed to fit in two cars. Now, half a year later, I feel that the roofs have sunk in the middle, it's been like that since we bought the house but I think it has increased slightly.
I went up above the inner ceiling and discovered that the roof beams were not in full lengths but spliced both longitudinally and transversely with no overlaps anywhere...
Now I can think of two solutions.
1. A longitudinal steel beam of 5m to support the roof beams where they are "spliced."
2. Cut open the inner ceiling at the joints, lift up with a jack and place a beam over the joint for stabilization.
Option 1 should be the safest while option 2 doesn't take up any space.
I have estimated the roof weight to be somewhere between 1500-2000kg.
The black represents the original trusses and the gray is the extension.
How would you handle it? (tearing down the roof and redoing it is not feasible at this time)
The best would be partly a longitudinal beam where the outer wall previously stood, partly to put proper splice plates over all seams.
That's what I'm considering.
It's a bit tricky with the garage door opener and such, but I'll have to look into it.
I could place a beam under the middle truss, a bit alongside the removed partition wall, but that's definitely a worse solution.
That is, directly under ONE of the trusses.
That would solve everything, but it would only unload a small part, though it has worked that way for over 10 years.
There are many ways to solve your problem, but it's important to choose one that is cost-effective. This thing with snow loads is a bit tricky. They are calculated as maximum values over a 50-year period. This means that several years can pass without any significant amount of snow, and then suddenly it hits.
There are many ways to solve your problem, but it's about choosing one that is cost-effective. This thing with snow loads is a bit tricky. They are calculated as maximum values over a 50-year period. It means that several years can pass without any significant snow amount, and then suddenly it hits.
I've started to realize that.
Luckily, the newly recruited boss is apparently trained in construction, so I presented the brain teaser to him, and he charged off like a shot (after offering me a better used glulam beam).
Now waiting with excitement for the verdict
