Raise the Roof!

OK, the title of this post is a little misleading, but I like the sound of it. And while I’m not raising the roof, I am supporting the roof to assure it stays up where it is today.

The effort this weekend has centered around adding “rafter ties” (the newer looking wood in the photos) to the rafters. The rafters are the supports that hold up the roof and distribute load to the walls on either side of the roof, ultimately holding the whole thing up.  Because this house was poorly framed in the 1950’s, I’m doing a few things to strengthen the structure before I begin re-framing the interior. Rafter ties are the first of those things.

Without getting into a physics lesson (that I’m incapable of teaching, anyway) there are two main pressures on a roof. One is obvious, the weight (load) resting on top of the supporting walls. The other is often overlooked, and that is the downward pressure on the center/top of the roof (the pitch). In order to assure that the pitch stays, well, “up there,” something needs to be done to prevent “spreading” at the lower parts of the roof. That’s what these rafter ties do in my situation. In the first photo you can see a grid of old ceiling joists that actually provided no support and simply were holding up the drywall – those are coming out once the ties are in place. This will also allow me to raise the ceiling about 18″. (So maybe this post is really about raising the roof?!?)

The ties are 2×6 supports with the ends cut at an angle to match the roof pitch. Since I’m cutting several of these (22 boards, 44 cuts, to be precise) with the same angled cuts, I built a simple jig from scrap wood. I measured the angle, cut a 2×4 with to that angle, added a few other 2×4 rails, and place this against each new board. Then I can simply run my circular saw down the jig until the cut is complete. The hardest part isn’t even the angled cuts, but holding a length of 2×6 overhead while on a ladder and hammering it in place. It’s not that difficult, but it really is exhausting!

Most of the rafter ties are now in place so the final demolition efforts can begin on my next visit. I expect to spend about two days on the remaining interior demolition, one more on rafter ties, and then framing can begin in earnest.