Structural Support for Removing Cross Members in Attic Remodel: Expert Advice

[bigrick31]

Hello I want to do a little remodel on my homes attic and have a question in regards to removing cross members and how to properly re support the roof in my home. I am not a student I am actually an electrician looking for a little structural advice.

I have two cross beams that I would like to remove but I need to support the roof somehow. My main fear is cutting the supports and having the roof sag a little in that area. The roof is fairly well supported as it is and the beams I want to remove don't seem to be supporting a lot of weight I can take my hand and wiggle the beam a little in either direction.

This is how my roof looks now. This is only about half of my roof just the area that I want to modify. The beam that I want to remove is seen in red.

I would then take and add two 2x4s to the top and bottom of the beam as seen here in blue

Then I would sandwich part of the red beam along with the blue beams with what is colored here in brown so that the order goes brown beam with blue/red in the middle then another brown beam on the other side so that I can cut away a part of the red beam so that it looks like this.

Is this the best way to accomplish removing part of that beam or can someone recommend a better way to put new supports in place?

 

[permadank]

Run a single beam from the current connection point at the top of your existing red beam to the bottom of your new wall indicated by the blue line. No other reinforcement is needed. If you build it out like the picture, you are placing your new blue beam in sheer stress, which is a poor design. All of the weight of the building of the roof is already suspended on 1 point. All you need to do is just shorten the red beam to fit inside your wall. Adding a 2nd support point to the roof is unnecessary. Your design will be weaker than a single beam as described which will then be in the correct compression stress position.