I am having the worst time removing that old insulation. It's probably some form of cellulose that was untreated and has since deteriorated down to almost a powder. It's worse than plaster dust.

Anyway. I've been kicking around the idea of vaulting the ceiling on the second floor. Perhaps not the whole thing , but just in the front and in the back by creating a scissor truss and removing the old joists. Has anyone had any experience doing this?

I'm pretty sure I'm going to have to reinforce the roof rafters, currently 2x4 rough cut, with 2x6s and then proceed to create something like this:

http://www.allischalmers.com/forum/uploads/5227/Scissor-Truss.jpg

Hell watch for the millions. When you find them let me know and I will book my flight. <hugs>

Miss

That's one issue with the current layout. The load points do not go straight to the basement. Compare 1st floor drawing to the 2nd floor drawing.

I'm dealing with balloon construction, which I have a basic understanding of. I'm not sure if the front and back of the house have enough support in the walls to carry that of a lvl beam in the attic. I'm also trying to keep costs down. A beam like that requires an engineer and a crew to install it. Whereas building scissor joists in place is something I can do on my own time. May still need an engineer for guidance, but at least I'm not paying $5,000 for a beam. Sound reasonable?

I think I remember that house - the over engineered beam if I recall correctly?

My attic has a height of 7'9" give or take, which makes it ideal for storage, but not so much for an extra room as the most width I could get is about 7 feet, probably less after having the space finishe, so that idea is out. The attic floor joists are rough cut 2x6's and if you recall in the walk-through video, I already have issues to contend with regarding those joists. The roof rafters are rough cut 2x4's on 16 inch centers. Not legal by today's standards. [edit: no other supports, no trussing, no collar ties, no ridge beam, not even a ridge board]

My thought process is that if I vault the ceilings slightly, roof is ~7/12, so I could get maybe 3/12 on the ceiling, it would help to add some height to the rooms (currently 7'6" I think) and allow me to add ceiling fans, etc. But also, it would take some weight off the floors.



Edited by Ice Man - August 24 2014 at 3:50am

Put together another video describing visually what I am looking at.

Roof rafter, vaulting

If I change the floor plan around I will have no choice but to re-engineer the beam. The attic floor (second floor ceiling) is not level and is 6 inches too low for my taste. Vaulting the ceiling would solve several issues, including removing load from the center of the house for which is not carries directly to the basement.

I did leave out one part of the truss in the video, it's there in pencil, just didn't mention it.

Conan, what do you think?

Now I'm wondering if using 2x6's is unnecessary.