Timeline for Can I cut the small tab off of these rafters to make drywalling easier
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
14 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Jul 8, 2022 at 13:30 | comment | added | Trevor Boyd Smith | i think the last diagram would be most illustrative if you showed the top two pieces flat and not connected. | |
| Jul 8, 2022 at 13:09 | comment | added | SteveSh | You said "Do not remove those. That small bit of wood prevents horizontal sliding of the roof beams, and therefore roof collapse". There are other ways to accomplish that same thing without weakening the rafter. Nowadays hurricane ties are the preferred method. | |
| Jul 7, 2022 at 19:21 | comment | added | MiG | I'd rather not bet on two screws considering the asker lives in Chicago. | |
| Jul 7, 2022 at 18:14 | comment | added | brhans | Sure - the walls are ultimately held together by the horizontal joist - but I don't see any nails or screws attaching the joist directly to the walls. The joist is attached to the rafters, and the rafters are then attached to the walls. It's the horizontal joist which prevents the rafters from falling down (and pushing the walls apart), not the notches in the rafters. The only way there's going to be any outwards pressure from the notches onto the wall is if the horizontal joist has already failed - the roof beams together make a stable triangle independently of the walls. | |
| Jul 7, 2022 at 13:22 | comment | added | MiG | I would consider those notches (which will be at regular intervals) to be a nice architectural feature tbh, you could even paint them a different colour (like black). Otherwise you'd have a slightly lower ceiling and a featureless white rectangular box as a space. | |
| Jul 7, 2022 at 13:19 | comment | added | MiG | The walls are held together by that horizontal beam. One alternative would be to strengthen that connection, then you have a triangle leaning on the walls. This does not appear to be the case right now, there's the outward force from the rafters and separately there's the beam holding the walls together. That would mean the roof's gonna sag and under heavy (possibly even a moderate) load, collapse. | |
| Jul 7, 2022 at 13:18 | comment | added | brhans | That being said I would still not remove the notches and would instead use some 2x furring strips on the joists to lower the ceiling. | |
| Jul 7, 2022 at 13:17 | comment | added | brhans | Your illustration makes it look like the walls are resisting the outward force from the rafters. That's never going to work - the walls will bow outwards without something tying them together. The horizontal joist would do that job - but from the OP's pics it looks to me as though the joist is attached to the rafter, and the rafter is then attached to the top-plate (with some diagonal nails). I don't see any direct attachment from the joist to the top-plate anywhere. So to me in this design it appears that the outwards force is only being counteracted by the joists screwed to the rafters. | |
| Jul 7, 2022 at 10:12 | comment | added | MiG | I've added some illustrations, maybe this will make it easier to understand. Please do not remove these things unless you plan on reinforcing the structure in another way. And if so, please involve an expert! | |
| Jul 7, 2022 at 10:10 | history | edited | MiG | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
added illustrations
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| Jul 7, 2022 at 3:54 | comment | added | Nelson | The direction of forces are going to change. It might just crack the beam along the grain and you'll have to rebuild your roof, or witness it cave in. Something tells me just evaluating whether it is safe is already a major engineering construction job and not a DIY anymore. | |
| Jul 6, 2022 at 21:16 | comment | added | MiG | it's not particularly well secured to the diagonal beam (if it were supposed to transfer load between these two, it would have been secured with a plate and lots of nails/screws). So it will probably only function to keep the vertical posts together (and the roof up combined with those birdsmouths). Removing them, especially in a region that sees heavy snow loads, is a bad idea. | |
| Jul 6, 2022 at 21:10 | comment | added | roasthead | That horizontal beam with the 2 screws in it appears to be acting as a rafter tie | |
| Jul 6, 2022 at 15:07 | history | answered | MiG | CC BY-SA 4.0 |