I am considering replacing my roof with a mansard style roof. I’ve reviewed old engineering drawing and had an architect input on the style, but there seem to be many variations. Is there a good literature source for frame style for this type of roof? The architect builds a secondary wall pulled into the house about 1-2′ to support the roof while running supporting beams on the second floor, while the 100+ year old drawings have special cut rafters attached to the main walls. Any thoughts?
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The term "Mansard" can mean about 50 different things, IMHO.
Can you come up with some pictures or specs on what you're doing?
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There is a house in the neighborhood that is a good representation. I will post pictures later today.
I've attached a pic of the current house and a picture of what we're planning. The picture labeled mansard1 is the plan while the other is preexisting.
that's a lovely foursquare you have there in photo #2.
have you thought about a few more dormers to match the beauty on the front ?
check this out
or this
carpenter in transition
Its a good four-square, however the roof is not in fair shape as such a majority of the rafters need to be replaced. We wanted some more headroom in the attic section along with a rear addition and wrap around front porch. The Mansard caught our eye, although the duel dormered photo in link #2, "the White-Overbey House", might have the same effect.
Thanks for the links and adding another view.
As an architectural historian, I would want to try to talk you out of putting a Second Empire roof, circa 1870, on to a Craftsman foursquare. Wildly, wildly incongruous (unless, perhaps, you were willing to completely make over the entire interior and exterior in an authentically Second Empire/Italianate manner).
Do you really want a house with Arts & Crafts proportions and details throughout, and then this weird, pseudo Victorian 3rd storey stuck on top? Or just as bad, do you want to make your house resemble an ugly 1970's apartment building?
You've got a very handsome house. It would be much better, as others have suggested, to respect and appreciate what you already have, and work on creating additions that compliment and enhance the existing style.
For example, there's a similar foursquare in my community to which the owners added space in the attic by creating a greek-cross shaped belvedere. It might be imagined as four very broad dormers, slightly taller than the original roof peak, all extruded backwards to meet each other in the center. The result was a charming addition that looks as though it could be original to the house.
If you really want a Victorian, go buy a Victorian, and leave your poor house alone. : )
tuffy
Well said, I dont know why anyone would want to change the period style of the house, just go get that style, then nobody wonder's what the hell you were doing.
Doug
My house has a mansard roof and I am in the process of adding an addition (about doubling the house). The framing of the existing roof was done by constructing conventional stud walls and leaning them in by 15 degrees. The plates, top and bottom are therefore on an angle. A wedge was added to the top plate to facilitate the attachment of the roof rafters/ceiling joists. The existing house had a flat roof. The interior walls and what we've called reverse dormers support the mansards laterally.
This means that the exterior walls on the second floor slant in.
For the addition, we build straight exterior load bearing walls above the first floor walls walls. The ceiling joists were designed to take the roof load and expented past the exterior walls by about 11". We then hung the mansards from the the ceiling joist extensions, maintaining the 15 degree angle. This gave us a 31'' overhang around the house.
We then added a peaked roof using extended over the ceiling joists.
There are a few web sites that show the different designs. One is through the cedar shake and shingle bureau.
I hope that this is helpful.
This is the site I was referring to.
http://www.frasercedarproducts.com/page9.html