I have a laundry room attached to the back of the house (was done by previous owner). Recently I found a leak (due to some nail wrongly on the shingle exposed). But then when I "uncover" below the roof which is the ceiling, I saw this structure:
Just to help understand better, here is the framing NOW:
The "blue" is roof rafters of the existing home structure. I suspected the previous owner built out a patio roof section and then add the laundry room which is the "red" color rafters above. However, the laundry roof was "hang" on the "green" lumber w/ U-bracket and use it as a "ledger".
What are my options? I am thinking:
Option 1: Do nothing. It's just 4.5 feet so that 2×4 ledger might be good enough?
Option 2: Redo the entire roof of the laundry room by doing the below. Basically re-run the rafters higher so it's on top of the existing beam ( 2x 2×4 on top of the gray studs):
Please advise.
Best Answer
Your Option 2 is still not going to be a really great solution. If you are going to lay the new rafters on top of the existing rafters and existing roof sheathing you will need to taper the upper rafters as shown below. This way there can be a smooth transition of the roofing materials from the existing roof down onto the new extension rafters.
Ideally the solution would have the full width of the new rafters up above the double top plate of the original wall but full width out somewhere along the old rafter tails is going to be workable as well. Overall this will be way better than the hack job done for the original build.