How To Raise Roof To Have A Walk Up Attic

You might open up your attic and find bare joists with fiberglass or cellulose insulation between the joists.

How to raise roof to have a walk up attic.

Once the walls of the addition are up and the roof deck is in place the chimney vents and stacks. The first is your ceiling height. You have rafter roof framing if the roof supports meet the floor joists with no extra supports or diagonal bracing. Fortunately this is a fairly easy fix.

If your home has rafter roof framing it will be easier to increase the ceiling height. This may seem like a daunting task but it can be done with the help of a contractor. Attics are a top pick when homeowners decide to gain some extra storage or add a guest room but not all attic flooring structures are up to the task of supporting the weight of a new living space. If you re finishing your attic insulating it to the proper r value can cause a dramatic loss of headroom if you limit yourself to fiberglass batts.

A top floor addition a dormer making more of existing attic space and changing the pitch of the roof. You can sister the joists by cutting 2 x8 boards the same length as the joists applying construction adhesive and affixing each to a joist with nails. If your current roof and attic setup has electrical wiring and hvac plumbing pipes that will be in the way of your new roofing structure you will need to have these wires and plumbing moved and reinstalled to fit your new existing roof structure this can add up to around 4 200 in total. Electrical rewiring plumbing restructuring.

You have truss framing if the roof supports have triangular truss supports in the corners of the roof where it meets the attic floor supports. A truss framed roof on the other hand doesn t have any attic space to expand you re probably going to have to raise a truss framed roof to get more space. To meet all three goals insulating your finished attic ventilating the roof and maximizing headroom use a combination of dense batt insulation rigid foam sheeting and air chutes. To be classified as a livable space your floor to ceiling height will have to be at least 7 feet.

Raise the roof to create more cubic feet of space beneath it. If your attic is shorter than this you can lower the ceiling on the lower level or raise your roof.