Loft - Pitched roof support question

[StevieJK]

Hi all,

Hoping someone with knowledge and experience of pitched roofs can confirm/deny my thinking here:

I have a small loft that is the usual attic space made up of 2 small pitched roofs at the top of the house.

There is no load on the roof sides apart from the usual tiles:

Inside the loft it seems fairly well supported - with 2 sizeable wooden beams running the entire length of both sides of the pitched roof, supported at either end by being inserted into the brick walls:

As well as these 2 large horizontal beams - as you can see in the above image, there are 2 more sizeable beams forming a solid 'triangle' support in the middle of the loft - which in turn are also supporting the horizontal beams where they intersect.

On the right side of the loft (in above image), you can see several little planks of wood that someone has added as use for extra supports - going from the horizontal beam down to the floor joists:

I would like to remove these little planks as i would like more storage space - my thinking is that the roof is already supported enough that these are not needed. As you can see, they are only attached to the main beams and joists by a single nail through them on the outside, I can't see how much extra support they really provide? There are none on the other side either....

So my question is basically, am I right in thinking it's safe to remove these?

Thanks for any advice.

Steve.

 

[jeds]

I don't think those planks are supporting the roof - they are supporting the ceiling. They were probably added (if they were added?) because the ceiling deflected over the years. You could remove them but you'd probably need to put something in place the prevent the ceiling dropping.

 

[StevieJK]

Thanks jeds.

I didn't think of it like that - makes sense I suppose. Strange they were not added to the other side of the roof though?

I am actually having some boards put down for storage and getting all of the joists 'doubled up' for extra load support, I think that should do it?

 

[jeds]

I didn't think of it like that - makes sense I suppose. Strange they were not added to the other side of the roof though?

Maybe just a different room configuration means ceiling span is less on that side?

 

[StevieJK]

yeah that's probably it John - the side with no extra support sits over the bathroom internal walls.

So I guess if I get the ceiling joists strengthened (for boarding over and storage) then that should be ok to remove those extra supports?

 

[jeds]

I'd say so.

 

[StevieJK]

Cool. Thanks John