Some help please with this old house's rafters

[Rocky98Formula]

Hi guys,

A friend of mine recently bought a house that was built in the 1950's. There are some interior walls that we want to take down to create more of an open concept design in the main living room/kitchen area. We have no construction plans for the home so we went into the attic to try and determine the load distribution on these interior walls in question.

I saw some stuff in the attic I can't quite make sense of. The ceiling joists run perpendicular to the roof rafters and there doesn't seem to be anything other than some 1x5 collar ties holding the roof rafters from spreading as seen in the photos. The ridgeboard is only a 1x4. There are also some strangely supported 2x8s that run across the rafters half way down. I don't think they are providing any real load support but I can't figure out their purpose. Does anyone know what they are?

The area where there is no insulation is the area above the carport. As seen in the top view pic, the rafters in question are over the carport and adjoining living room space. These rafters are spanning an area that is almost 30 feet long and 16 feet wide. Should my friend be looking at beefing up the roof before making any changes to the interior walls? To the best of my knowledge, the interior walls are only holding up the ceiling joists so I think they can be removed with some modifications to the joists themselves.

One last question, there's some dark gray insulation in the attic as seen in the last pic. What kind of insulation is this?

Thank you,
Rocky

 

[bmxdad]

I would move the insulation out of the way and check to see if the living area structure is the same. Looks like they just carried the roof out over the drive way at a later date.

The black insulation looks like rock wool.

 

[CNGsaves]

I'd say anything below those vertical supports in attic need to stay. Those are holding up rafters/roof . . . . especially since rafter ties are sparse.

What is plan down below ??? Is homeowner thinking he can blow out all the walls??

Looks to me it's time to add gable vent in attic, insulate over carport . . .
. . . . AND . . . CLOSE-IN that carport and turn it into a real garage !!

 

[drivesitfar]

Rocky: it's hard to say with all the insulation in the way. i agree with BMX that the black insulation is an older style wool that might make you itch more than fiberglass.

pretty interesting that the ridge board is only a 1 x 4 and not a one metal support that i can see.

how old is the roof?

maybe if it needs a new roof a new bigger support can be installed and you might be able to remove those small headers.

need more pictures with insulation out of the way to say for sure. also what is below supporting those small headers? does the 4 x 4 that is notched longer than maybe 3 feet? pictures of those where they hit the ceiling would be good if you are able.

nice looking yard and house has a lot of potential.

 

[Falcon67]

To the best of my knowledge, the interior walls are only holding up the ceiling joists so I think they can be removed with some modifications to the joists themselves.

That would mean the wall is a bearing wall and cannot be removed without additional engineering in the attic.

A 2x4 rafter roof braced like that can hold a lot. Our old house had 3 layers of composite on top of wood shingles when we tore it off. That old stuff is rockwool - had a house full of it. Works, just old. Other than that, looks like typical 30s-50s type construction.

 

[Rocky98Formula]

What is plan down below ??? Is homeowner thinking he can blow out all the walls??

The plan is to remove the "purple" walls in the floor plan image below. The green lines are the ceiling joists and they are all supported on one end by one of these interior walls. The homeowner is thinking of removing all of the purple walls and extending the beam (thick black lines) to go all the way to the back wall....maybe a steel beam required for this length? The beam would not be recessed into the ceiling so the majority of the ceiling joists would stay as is. Some joists in the kitchen area would have to come down and be reoriented as required.

how old is the roof?

maybe if it needs a new roof a new bigger support can be installed and you might be able to remove those small headers.

need more pictures with insulation out of the way to say for sure. also what is below supporting those small headers? does the 4 x 4 that is notched longer than maybe 3 feet? pictures of those where they hit the ceiling would be good if you are able.

The roof is less than 5 years old so still has a lot of life left. The notched timber that are holding up the 2x8 headers are all either sitting on top of an outside wall or on top of a beam/interior wall. I was wondering if these headers are actually serving a purpose as many of the supports for the headers appear to be shifted/tilted/leaning etc.

The house itself doesn't look like it uses conventional drywall but it also doesn't look like lathe/plaster. Whatever it has, it appears to be around an inch think. Is this common for a house of this era?

Thank you for the replies.