All - thanks for all the help in the recent and not so recent past! Here
comes a new phase of d-i-y for me (apart from the brickwork and a
jcb/man/lorry for demolition and digging and a bit of joinery labour).

I'm demolishing my old garage and building a new one 10m * 6.5m. I'm in
Scotland.

Planning permission, building warrant, etc all sorted.

That said I'm still pondering a few things like roof trusses & the type of
bricks (conservation area and I want it to match the rear of the house which
has 100 y/o vistorian "buff" bricks - or i might consider sandstone blocks
'cos the front of the house is facing sandstone). This pondering is valid
since the planning's conditional on the council approving the bricks /
slates and the building warrant needs a certificate from the truss company
or a structural engineer.

My initial questions (there'll be a lot more, I'm afraid) are about the roof
timber.

I intend to put a room in the attic of the garage Velux windows, so I need
"attic trusses".

I've been quoted £65 and £100 for each of the attic trusses from 2 different
suppliers (obviously they'll come with certificates). They say i need 20
trusses (extra because of the velux).

I tried to price up the timber to get a joiner to make up the roof (300m
will cover it i think) but i'm struggling to get it in the 7m lengths which
will be necessary to get a continuous run from front wall to back wall,
although the drawings for the trusses show a join on that length of timber.
it's not clear what technique would be used to make the join though or what
the overlap will be.

My question is, what would be the technique to make a joint in the standard
lengths to get a 7m span and what would be the overlap (if any) required?
Would i put a length of timber on each side of the joint and bolt them
through?

Please be assured that i will pay a structural engineer to design the roof
and certify it for the building warrant - i'm more than happy to do that. I
just want some ideas so i can price the timber, factor in the labour and
make cost comparisons - and factor in £200 - £300 for the engineer.

If anyone's interested or needs more information, i'll post the drawings up
on the web.


TIA
Paul