Sorry I couldn't find an answer for this anywhere so thought I'd try the great minds here instead (am hoping shameless compliments will get me somewhere here!)
Basically our loft has these 4 beams that go from the apex of the roof down to the floor of the loft, on top of what is a supporting wall (can't see how its connected as there is insulation/boarding in the way now).
The thing I'm wondering is, do I need these as they are only about 1×3" in size and are fairly flimsy, they certainly cant be load bearing and I reckon I could kick them in half if I were of a mind. But I can't work out what they are for…
Has anyone had any experience of them or whether they are just leftovers from lazy builders (they look like they were there when the house was built as its the same colour of wood as the other bits).
My obvious plan will be to get a structural engineer in to confirm but its driving me batty and google give me nothing but false hope, anyone got any clues?
I found this picture after more digging, my loft looks like the one on the left, but the picture seems to suggest that vertical strut doesnt need to be there…?
Best Answer
Your picture suggests that they are different truss types. The fact that one doesn't have the vertical member in the middle doesn't mean that it isn't needed. I could design a roof without any bracing members - that doesn't mean that you can go and take out bracing members from a different roof. My design would need chunkier members and connections to take the different loads, whereas the roof with bracing members would have smaller members, as it will have been designed assuming those bracing members were there.
More than likely the reason it is there is because it is needed. But there's no problem with employing a structural engineer to confirm this.