Removing A Wall In A House With A Truss Roof

Is it true that you can remove any walls from the interior with out fear of roof sag or worse collapse.

Removing a wall in a house with a truss roof.

A girder truss can be used to support an existing roof whether the original roof is trussed or pitched. The roof has prefabbed trusses accross the whole span. Just a quick consideration of your situation if the interior wall was framed after the trusses roof sheathing roofing were installed then i would expect little deflection after removing the interior wall. Engineered roof truss systems may be designed to eliminate the need for load bearing walls or change where the bearing walls are located.

Since it is a truss system roof. There may still not be any interior bearing walls but you should check. Roof trusses are a common means of support and load bearing. We usually build on the exterior walls set the trusses and do all of the chord blocking and truss bracing before buildin.

However if the interior wall was framed before the trusses were set it is possible that the wall prevented deflection of the trusses from the dead load of the trusses sheathing. You will require a building consent to remove or alter load bearing walls. Only some of your walls are needed to hold up your house. Most simple construction truss roof home s roof and trusses are supported by the exterior walls perpendicular to the trusses.

The other method which can be used in some instances is using a truss to hold up the original roof especially when adding onto the side of an existing house. These are called bearing walls. 2 truss chords have been removed. To the 40 foot trusses.

You can remove either type of wall but if the wall is load bearing you have to take special precautions to support the structure during removal and to add a beam or other form. For example a gable end truss may be designed with support members that transmit the roof weight load outward to the side walls allowing the end wall directly below it to have breaks or openings in it that would otherwise be impossible. However if you want to better utilize the space in your loft you may consider changing roof trusses and going for stick framing or rafters instead. 3 only part of the roof framing may be trusses and the rest is rafters as in the photo below.

The wall that i intend to remove is in the middle of the truss system. Remember any alterations to a roof should be undertaken only with an engineer. Directly under the center king post and gusset plate where the bottom cord attach together. The rest of the walls the partition walls are simply there to divide rooms.