I'm buying a home and had a building inspection yesterday. The only major defect the inspector found was two split/broken rafters inside the roof. Can anyone tell me if these are a major conern?
Thanks
Split/broken rafters a concern
carpentryroofstructural
Related Solutions
If you have space and there's any structure left near the ends, the easiest way is to not replace the existing rafters and joists, but to sister a second board on the side of each. Attaching the two with bolts every foot or two (50 cm). Use several bolts at the ends of the wider lumber (7x2).
If you don't have the space or the existing structure has rotted to the point that it won't hold a bolt, then a temporary support is very similar to the existing structure, built as close as possible to location you're working on. If there is a load bearing joint above your structure (unlikely for where you're working, this is typically seen with a load bearing wall and two joists meeting over top of the wall), you would build support for each side of the joint. If the existing structure has sagged, you'll want to jack it back up before installing your new support.
Note that when it comes to engineered joists and rafters, they are frequently designed with precisely engineered joints and webbing to carry the load. If you cannot match exactly what was done before, then I would recommend getting a professional, or at least the advice of an engineer.
Your inspector is correct. Air should enter at the soffit, and exit at either roof vents or a ridge vent. With the current setup air could be entering either the soffit vents or the roof vents, and exiting either the roof vents or the ridge vent. Since your soffits are covered with insulation (because there are no baffles), I'd guess that air is entering the roof vents and exiting the ridge vent. This means only the air near the top of the roof is cycling, which can lead to problems with the roof including a shortened roof life.
In my house there were originally roof vents in the roof above my garage. When they did a reroof they switched to a ridge vent, and as you can see they covered over the old roof vent openings.
On a side note: Inspectors are hired by you, and work for you. They have no reason to lie or mislead you, since they will not gain in any way from it. In fact, you can probably trust an inspector more than a random person on the internet. Seeing how you paid the inspector for advice, while I'm doing this for free.
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Best Answer
I see two issues here, and I'd have some significant concerns.
1. Fixing What You See
Repairing these rafters is no big deal, but it looks like there's no access to the space to get to the broken rafters. You'd likely have to remove and replace the ceiling drywall to repair the rafters, and if that's the case, that's kind of a big deal. It's easy enough to remove some drywall, but replacing what you remove and repainting it - that's a lot of work.
2. Fixing What You Don't See (Yet)
The greater concern is that there is a structural deficiency, that the roof was not designed properly in the first place. There could be additional issues not visible to the home inspector. It looks like that vertical 1x3 might have been added to prop up a sagging roof, then the rafter broke around the propping.
Resolving this could be a lot of work, worst case you'd have to remove the metal corrugated roof, replace / add / upsize rafters and purlins, and put back the metal.
If sagging pulled the roof apart in any spot, it could have caused water damage, which could have caused mold ... big can of worms.