Hi
I plan to remodel the upstairs of my house that was built in 1910. The plan is to have space for two bedrooms and a new bathroom, or one big bedroom with a bath. The upstairs currently has knee walls and a low ceiling with no insulation or ventilation. Our house is a rectangle, approximately 24×45 with a bearing wall running down the middle. I would like to extend the knee walls from three feet to six feet, giving the upstairs more head room and bigger rafters for insulation and venting. The new walls would then stand proud of the existing roof plane by approximately three feet with the new roof on top. However, that means the new walls supporting the majority of the roof load would be between three to four feet off the exterior walls. The floor joists ae 2×6. My plan to support the new walls and roof is to run beams (4×6 or possibly 6×6) along the floor joists every six feet or so. Then, I would built the new wall on a beam that runs perpendicular to the beams in the floor. Our plan also calls for a couple of dormers on each side of the reconfigured roof. We are trying to keep the construction as light as possible because we have an old foundation six inches wide x28 inches high. There is no footing. My questions are; does this sound like a reasonable plan, is it overkill, do I need an engineer, are we going to have foundation issues? Any help, thoughts or ideas would be appreciated. Thank you
Replies
You have mentioned a long list of major structural issues. Minimal foundation, undersized joists (for a future floor), added wind load, new roof, just to name a few. You absolutely need to confer with an engineer
Good luck, sounds like an interesting project.
Thank you for your input. In my mind, I was just trying to take a three foot wall and add three feet more to it. The idea of moving a wall that would bear load from the exterior wall and move it three or four feet onto the floor joists made me a little twitchy.
Good cause for concern. So, basically, you want to raise the height of the exterior walls, and replace the roof? If so, then your new interior knee walls won't necessarily be load bearing, not clear on your concerns in this area. Ideally you'd want the weight of the roof transferred out to the exterior walls as efficiently as possible.
The new upstairs wall would actually step in approximately four feet from the first floor exterior wall, creating a five foot section of roof, then the new upstair wall with the new roof on top. I apologize for not expressing the thoughts more clearly.