v wrote:
On 9 May 2005 09:18:21 -0700, someone wrote:


I recalled that during the last home inspection, the inspector
mentioned that we cannot walk on the attic directly; we have to
walk
on the rafter.

You inspector was using inaccurate terminology. The "rafters" are
the
sloped faming that holds up the roof - hard to walk on those unless
you can walk upside down. The level pieces the tie the lower ends of
the rafters down are joists to me - ceiling joists if their primary
purpose is to hold the ceiling, I suppose they could be attic floor
joists if there was an attic floor. But anyway, all to picky.

What are you calling "on the attic directly"??? Of course you can't
walk on insulation that is only supported by the ceiling sheetrock,
you'd put your foot thru the ceiling.

Go up and just walk on the wood for cryin' out loud, get some common
sense. (If English is your second language, I cut your more slack
since informality in terminology could confuse you more.)

Except I think he's saying the attic is over a cathedral ceiling, so
the joists are the "rafters" of the sloped ceiling, and they reach a
point in the middle of the attic. There would be no level joist to walk
on. And depending on how they were tied together in the middle, they
would not have the strength of a continuous flat joist.

This would make sense of the comment about walking "on the bottom tip
of the [inverted] V", referring to the cathedral ceiling joists. Also
the bit about some of the V's not touching the roof.

I have no idea what he should do, just trying to figure out what the
situation is.

Chip C