This is not from an inspection I performed, nor have I been to this property. These pictures were sent to me from one of my clients who’s performing work in his house. He wants to remove an interior wall but wants to know if it’s load bearing. I’m thinking just from the pictures that the wall is not load bearing because it runs parallel with the trusses. Any opinions based on these pictures? The wall that he wants to remove he marked it with green on one of the pictures.
Here pictured is the wall. And on the second picture he circled what seems to me to be the truss, looking up into the attic from inside the home.
If something is parallel under a single truss/rafter, it should be partition. Also, single story truss homes usually don’t have interior load bearing walls. That truss looks weird. I’ve never seen one quite like that.
Could be wrong but that’s what I’ve been told.
What are the trusses sitting on? There looks like some type of framing between the truss and the ceiling below.
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This is my main question as well @rmayo and I’m not sure since like I said I’m only going off of these pictures. Could it be piggyback truss?
It doesn’t look like a piggy back truss system. It does look very weird. It looks like to me that this roof area was originally designed as a hip roof. As can be seen by the hip girder and common hip trusses going behind it. Then they decided to make this roof area a gable roof and overframed with additional valley trusses above the little mono hip jacks coming off of that hip girder toward the front of the picture. The smaller valley trusses toward the back of the picture appear to be sitting on small sections of plywood installed over the original hip trusses.
With the cast Iron stack and range hood duct? This roof area is clearly not the front of the house. Do you have an overhead view or from the back/sides?
One cannot determine if that wall is non-bearing just by those pictures and would be foolish to even attempt it and assume the responsibility.
That is a hip roof and depending how the truss layout is and confusing pictures, comfirming that the wall is bearing or not can only be confirmed by going up in the attic and finding the top of the wall. If it is bearing, you should be able to see it, for it should be exposed to view. Tell your client he needs a qualified builder to verify before he goes any further.
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Agreed…
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He said that framing underneath all the trusses which is why I thought about a piggyback truss system.
I agree with you @mcyr but like I said it’s not for an inspection, rather for an old client and friend who’s asking for my opinion so there’s no liability involved. I’ll probably go by and take a look in the attic myself just for curiosity if I have time. Just wanted to post and see what you guys though.
Roof is hip all the way around no gable.
Looking at the front elevation of the house, it is odd that there is that much space below the trusses.
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So you’re telling me, to the front of those attic pictures, it turns into a hip again? That just makes no sense to me to waste so much wood if that was original. Unless, the area toward the front of the picture was added later? Do you know if any additions/modifications have been done on the house?
The roof on that house doesn’t look tall enough to need piggy back trusses. Until a more in depth inspection is done I would not recommend moving any walls.
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If your not a structural engineer, you need to bow out of this one…
Don’t remember where I read this but modifying a truss system must be designed by an engineer/architect.
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I agree with you David. But there’s going to be no modifications to the truss system. So would you always recommend a structural engineer just to determine if an interior wall is load bearing or not?
I won’t speak for David, but don’t we all defer to a structural engineer for this type of thing?
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You as an inspector need to refer this to a structural engineering group, dont take on that liability of wich you are probably not insured for.
These do not look like trusses to me.
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Those king post trusses appear to be valley trusses to me sitting on top of the main trusses. That is why we are seeing attic beneath them. It appears someone just opened the attic access and took a picture.
If someone is wanting my professional opinion from a picture, yes.
Maybe the wall has something to do with it, maybe not.
They started ripping out the wall, they should have a better idea than us looking at a pic.
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