Roofing techniques

[tcns]

Hi guys,

I am just planning an extension of our living room and kitchen area,

Here is the basic info
Home : Post war Timber house
Roof: Terracotta Tiles
Floor: Cypress Pine
Sub Floor: Joists and Bearers
Posts: Brick Pier

The room is 3.5m wide and 11m long and I want to extend the rooms width by approximately 2m. There is a small laundry that would need to be demolished and then the new foundations would need to be built from there.

My question is are you still able to construct roofing with the stick construction method or are you now forced to roof with trusses ?

Also is this the best approach for extending this room and dealing with shifting that wall. I am just trying to find out if I am heading in the right direction.

I am drawing a little picture of what I want to do hang on

Tom

[tcns]

Ok here are a few quick sketeches

Pic one - the existing areas as you can see there some existing structures that need removing - the laundry will need to be torn down and rebuilt etc.


Pic Two proprosed changes
My proposal for the engineer would be to build the new foundation and external frame and then span the room with a hyspan member which would go next to each existing roof joist and be attached via an approved method. Then once all in place I would demolish the existing (once load bearing) wall

The only thing I can't work out how to address is the large structural member that runs down the lenght of the room - in the drawing it is small but I cant' seem to edit it in reality it is large

My problem would be that the existing roof memebers wouldn't be as thick as the new hyspan members and that large centre member (don't know what it is offically called) - any ideas ?
My only current thought would be that you would have to disassemble the entire roof structure and then lift that beam and then reseat it on the new hyspans - I was initially thinking that I may be able to just remove all the tiles and leave the structure


Thirdly,

Where the ridge beam construction roof over the deck (if it is called that ?)
meets the existing roof I would need to add a hip into the existing roof - can you make this in a stick construction method or should you just get trusses made.

Fourthly

Is this the most economical method of extending this room and creating a roof over our deck area - Is there a faster/simplier way to achieve this ?


Thanks for the insight guys just trying to make sure I am heading in the right direction.

Cheers
Tom

[OBBob]

You can certainly still build with sticks, however trusses are often cheaper and quicker.

If I'm looking at it correctly, you would have to pretty much remove the whole roof anyway wouldn't you? In which case it may be simplest to get trusses made, which oul probably be designed to deal with the additional span etc. You could also get the new wall frames made by the truss company.

I guess a farily big consideration is how long you want to be witout a roof?

[tcns]

Yes I think I would have to take the entire roof structure to bits and getting a truss company to make new the whole new structure as you would be without a roof for a shorter amount of time - which would be better - I would still need to respan the ceiling joists otherwise I would have to demolish the whole ceiling - might have to price the costs up to see whether an whole new plastering fit out would be better value.

Tom

[OBBob]

I don't see why the existing ceiling couldn't stay ... with a bit of planning and some kind weather you should be able to attach the existing joists to the new trusses.