[Default] On Sun, 30 May 2010 16:14:08 +0100, a certain chimpanzee,
"John" , randomly hit the keyboard and
wrote:

In preparation for putting a boiler in my loft I am wondering if a
particular timber is just what the builders used temporarily to support the
roofing timbers whilst building the house. The house has what I believe is
called a double hipped roof.
The timber in question is about 3/4" x 3" - it runs at a shallow angle from
the bottom of a roof member - upward to tie in with 3 others.
Anyone able to advise? Do builders use temporary bits of wood to hold things
upright whilst assembling the roof?

From the photos, I would have a few observations:
1. The centres of the trusses looks very random. Either the centres of
the trusses either side are much less than 600mm, or the central pair
are way over.
2. Just looked it up, and provided that the hips are properly
constructed, and the distance between then is 1.8mm or less[*], you
don't need diagonal bracing (under the rafters from wallplate to
ridge) ...
3. Which you don't appear to have.

The bits of timber in question could be chevron bracing, but this is
only required to trusses exceeding 8m in length[*].

You could move the chevron brace to run in an opposite direction, but
I would be reluctant to remove it entirely without knowing for sure
whether it's needed or not.

The other question is, "do you really want your boiler in the loft?"
[*] Assuming normal wind loads (i.e., you're not on top of a hillside
or an exposed fen or something).
--
Hugo Nebula
"If no-one on the internet wants a piece of this,
just how far from the pack have I strayed"?