I have been in my current house about 2 years and many problems have cropped
up in that time, mostly from the previous occupant - a bodger!

Whilst speaking to the neighbour I was horrified when I found out that he
did the loft conversion (well more like a daylight storage area) by
himself!!!!!

Nothing was picked up on the survey we had, although this was not a full
survey so in retrospect pretty damn useless!

I know nothing about roofs, however my house is a 1940's 3 bed semi, with a
hip style roof.

I've done a bit of a diagram to try and show you what's gone on.
http://www.keme.net/~sims/bodgeornot.jpg

Would the council office be able to tell me if its done right?

Does somebody have any plans of theirs with a similar type of roof they
could show me ?

Suggestions where to go from here welcome!

Cheers
Simmey

Simmey wrote:
http://www.keme.net/~sims/bodgeornot.jpg

Looks OK to me, will look again when I'm a bit more
with it. Hic!

On Thu, 29 Sep 2005 19:15:02 +0000 (UTC), "Simmey"
wrote:


| I've done a bit of a diagram to try and show you what's gone on.
| http://www.keme.net/~sims/bodgeornot.jpg

Needs the dimensions of the woodwork, and the spans which joists support.

--
Dave Fawthrop dave hyphenologist co uk
The London suicide bombers killed innocent commuters.
Animal rights terrorists and activists kill innocent patients.

"Simmey" wrote in message
...
I have been in my current house about 2 years and many problems have
cropped
up in that time, mostly from the previous occupant - a bodger!

Whilst speaking to the neighbour I was horrified when I found out that he
did the loft conversion (well more like a daylight storage area) by
himself!!!!!

Nothing was picked up on the survey we had, although this was not a full
survey so in retrospect pretty damn useless!

I know nothing about roofs, however my house is a 1940's 3 bed semi, with
a
hip style roof.

I've done a bit of a diagram to try and show you what's gone on.
http://www.keme.net/~sims/bodgeornot.jpg

Would the council office be able to tell me if its done right?

Does somebody have any plans of theirs with a similar type of roof they
could show me ?

Suggestions where to go from here welcome!

Cheers
Simmey


Hi all.

Thanks for all your posts (and all mine !! :-) )

I have edited the diagram http://www.keme.net/~sims/bodgeornot.jpg (you may
have to refresh your browsers) to show the bits that have been removed
(shown as dotted lines).

All of the wood is of a similar size slightly larger than 4" * 2"

All of the walls upstairs are stud walls, therefore are not load bearing?

Thanks Again.
Adrian

In article ,
says...
snip
All of the walls upstairs are stud walls, therefore are not load bearing?

Stud walls may be load bearing.

Simmey wrote:

I have edited the diagram http://www.keme.net/~sims/bodgeornot.jpg (you may
have to refresh your browsers) to show the bits that have been removed
(shown as dotted lines).

All of the wood is of a similar size slightly larger than 4" * 2"

Right that tells us a bit more... Firstly, look on your diagram where
you now have an inverted triangle (part solid, part dotted). Is there a
wall that runs under the point of your inverted triangle?

If so, then that is/was a supporting wall.

The beams you show that run across the rafters (i.e. sloping beams that
form the underside of the roof), are coloured green on your diagram and
hence you have under the "new stuff" category. However they look like
they could be original "purlins" which support the rafters mid span. The
weight of the rafters and the purlin would usually be taken to the
centre wall of the house via a strut ("Arm" in your diagram). Often also
these struts would meet at the floor helping to counterbalance the
lateral load they place on the wall.

Like: http://www.internode.co.uk/loft/images/beams1.jpg
(in the photo the small strip light is mounted on the purlin, and the
strut can be seen running down to the supporting wall in the top right
of the photo)

The lumps of wood that span the loft floor also look typical of tie
beams. These provide some extra lateral rigidity to the floor beams and
also help share loads to adjacent beams. They are not really designed to
carry direct loads, although they will obviously be far stronger than
using any one floor joist on its own. (if there was a floor in the loft
that was screwed down they would serve less purpose.

Here is one I cut through earlier!
http://www.internode.co.uk/loft/images/flitch.jpg
(off to the left of the shot - in this photo it is nailed to the plank
that hangs it temporarily from the purlin)

All of the walls upstairs are stud walls, therefore are not load bearing?

No, stud walls can be (and often are) load bearing.

So based on what we see now, the cut horizontal brace (red) looks less
significant since it would not have done that much in the first place
(the "arm"s taking the bulk of the load). The left hand side also looks
OK given that the loads are still being transferred to the floor (which
probably has a wall under it). The right hand side is a little more iffy
since it depends on the collective strength of the floor joists.
Normally if these had been replaced with something more like typical
floor joists then the design ought to be fine, as it is, it may also
still be ok but some sums are really needed to be sure).

(In fact it is what I did at the front of my loft:
http://www.internode.co.uk/loft/images/dwarfwall.jpg)


--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/