Attic Truss Load Bearing

The formula for truss loads states that the number of truss members plus three must equal the twice the number of nodes.

Attic truss load bearing.

You will need an engineer involved in this since many contractors will tell you anything to get the job. If the bottom chord of a roof truss functions as a floor joist such as in an attic room it carries a live load that also varies by use but a typical live floor load for a residential space is about 40 pounds per square foot. The live loads a truss is required to bear are determined by local building codes. Both sides of the equation should be equal in order to end up with a stable and secure roof structure.

You loose the upstairs space. It s often used in high rise buildings such as exposition buildings and grand stands. Truss roofs are typically designed to use some interior walls as mid span support to save on costs associated with making the truss larger stronger. Unfortunately my home builder had framed out the attic using a common truss system utilizing 2x4 s see attached picture of exact type although my roof is much steeper and no middle non bearing wall below.

They should be designed to span the whole width but they also could have been engineered to have a load bearing wall. Trusses is cost savings through ease of roof construction. For example a gable end truss may be designed with support members that transmit the roof weight load outward to the side walls allowing the end wall directly below it to have breaks or openings in it that would otherwise be impossible. Go up in the attic and find where the wall you want to remove hits the ceiling.

Engineered roof truss systems may be designed to eliminate the need for load bearing walls or change where the bearing walls are located. If the number of members is labeled m and the number of nodes is labeled n this can be written as m 3 2 n. By contrast a non load bearing wall sometimes called a partition wall is responsible only for holding up itself. Load bearing walls support the weight of a floor or roof structure above and are so named because they bear a load.

A load bearing wall is any wall that holds up the weight of the structure above and the people furniture supported by that structure. The double cantilever truss adds height to the structure and contributes to a light and graceful appearance. We usually build on the exterior walls set the trusses and do all of the chord blocking and truss bracing before buildin. The floors above roof structure people and furniture are the loads that the wall has to support.

A load bearing wall transfers load all the way down to the building s foundation.