loft conversion strut help

[dav15]

Hi everyone,

I have a 1950s terraced house with a traditional cut timber roof. As it has a high pitch, it seems ideal for a loft conversion. Im in the pre-planning stage at the moment and attempting most of the drawing by myself (senior lead designer to trade, although electrical, not structural!).

The house itself appears grossly over engineered in terms of structure, and Im hoping to use the direct support method for the new floor (calcs pending).

The only thing I am not sure of is the angled struts. These are cut and nailed directly to the rafters, with no purlin support, and appear to deflect onto the load bearing walls below. These would need to be "straightened out" to form the dwarf walls. My question is, can I simply straighten these existing struts and attach to the new floor joists as these will bear onto these walls anyway or will I need to fit thicker struts to compensate fitting these vertically? I would assume by straightening these it will enforce a greater stress therefore they would need to be thicker?

Any help would be appreciated.

[andy01]

love to help,but dont understand

firstly i cant picture the scene, any chance of a photo

secondly, if you have calcs pending, why havent they advised on the rest of the conversion? i believe the clacs for building control should be from a suitably qualified and experience professional, so they should know the answer

[happyhacker]

Frankly if this is a DIY build I would not move existing struts for fear of potential collapse or at least get the new supports built in first before removing anything! Do you need to modify the roof timbers as it stands now?