My house was built by an architect in 1991, in coastal central Florida, and has a marvelous roof truss system of open beams with no internal supports, however; many of these 48 or so 10 X 4 cedar beams are concealed. They are constructed in a semi monitor style with clerestory windows all along the ridge would be if the beams met at the apex of the roof, but they do not. Instead he designed it so that they meet with a triangular component where one roof side meets the other offset and there is a steel gusset, also 10 x 4 of 3/8 inch welded plate making up a reinforcement of the triangular junctions of the roof, they are on both sides of the beams, and have twenty one 3/4 inch carriage bolts each, with a total distance carrying load from header to header that bears the weight of 30 feet wide.
One of the issues for me is that the header beam on one side that carries the roof load when I bought the place was rotten to a heart sinking point but the seller had hidden that damage with artistic level finesse so much so that the inspector did not catch it. I had to replace the beams involved. That was a job let me tell you. But, now I am wondering about the header beam safety on the other side of the house and throughout the house where the header beams are hidden from sight. The roof used to groan and creak and I just passed it off as the house "talking to me," or normal thermal expansion and contraction which did play a part. But after replacing the main header beam out by the pool the "music" of stretched wood stopped. Yet I hear it in my bedroom as well. So, I have to wonder about the support for those beams now and they are of a different construction. The rest upon a header at the low end that is relatively easy to get at, and I am not worried about that structural stability much, but on the high end of the roof it is 20 feet up and the header is concealed.
That wall is not like the living room wing with the triangles but rather just a "lean to" style roof where one wall is 20' and at the lower end 9'. That roof in my opinion is making more noise than mere thermal expansion and contract should warrant, my gut is telling me there is a problem in it.
By the way the county switched to electronic filing of blueprints around the turn of the century and put the old paper blueprints on microfiche. But when I needed to pull a permit to repair the living room header beams that hold up the roof structure they could not find the prints for my house. I am sure you all experienced engineers have had to deal with this. In order to get a permit I had to have new plans drawn up but it was during lockdowns and there were no engineers returning calls. And I did not have the thousands they would be asking anyway, so I just did the replacement piece for piece without a permit. Remember 10 x 4 beams pricing had shot up in the lockdowns so steel would have been the cheaper option except that shot up as well and you could wait months my house did not have to get it.
If a doctor can look at the internal structure of our bodies with portable machines why is it we still can't look at the internal concealed structure of houses and other buildings without tearing out all the drywall? In my case the house is unique, I cannot just go out and buy the plan and hope the builder did not deviate from it. But I can't afford to strip the building of its drywall just to image the structural members and see if they are weakened or damaged, or to record them for a proper blueprint.
This thought came to me recently because I now see another beam where the rafter tail exposed outside shows damage from a wood destroying organism, looks to be a beetle of some sort, and I was wondering how you can treat a beam internally to kill a pest. I see damage on the outside of the beam in open air, but no damage yet in the attic where the beam passes inside the house. It also is 10 X 4 and rises to the peak of the roof at 20 feet, it would be a very expensive job to replace. I Googled this problem (how I found you) and there are companies that have microwave machines that heat up beams internally to a point where any organisms cannot survive but do not set the wood alight. They are low power microwaves sort of like trying to cook a frozen burrito on power level 2. Any bugs will cook internally long before the beam even feels warm. Hitch is there are only a few such companies and it is more expensive than just replacing the beam even though that might cost 30 - 40 thousand.
Is this why we do not have portable imaging machines? Is it too niche? Too expensive to make or buy such a machine? Would it be cheaper to invent anti matter generators or something?
One of the issues for me is that the header beam on one side that carries the roof load when I bought the place was rotten to a heart sinking point but the seller had hidden that damage with artistic level finesse so much so that the inspector did not catch it. I had to replace the beams involved. That was a job let me tell you. But, now I am wondering about the header beam safety on the other side of the house and throughout the house where the header beams are hidden from sight. The roof used to groan and creak and I just passed it off as the house "talking to me," or normal thermal expansion and contraction which did play a part. But after replacing the main header beam out by the pool the "music" of stretched wood stopped. Yet I hear it in my bedroom as well. So, I have to wonder about the support for those beams now and they are of a different construction. The rest upon a header at the low end that is relatively easy to get at, and I am not worried about that structural stability much, but on the high end of the roof it is 20 feet up and the header is concealed.
That wall is not like the living room wing with the triangles but rather just a "lean to" style roof where one wall is 20' and at the lower end 9'. That roof in my opinion is making more noise than mere thermal expansion and contract should warrant, my gut is telling me there is a problem in it.
By the way the county switched to electronic filing of blueprints around the turn of the century and put the old paper blueprints on microfiche. But when I needed to pull a permit to repair the living room header beams that hold up the roof structure they could not find the prints for my house. I am sure you all experienced engineers have had to deal with this. In order to get a permit I had to have new plans drawn up but it was during lockdowns and there were no engineers returning calls. And I did not have the thousands they would be asking anyway, so I just did the replacement piece for piece without a permit. Remember 10 x 4 beams pricing had shot up in the lockdowns so steel would have been the cheaper option except that shot up as well and you could wait months my house did not have to get it.
If a doctor can look at the internal structure of our bodies with portable machines why is it we still can't look at the internal concealed structure of houses and other buildings without tearing out all the drywall? In my case the house is unique, I cannot just go out and buy the plan and hope the builder did not deviate from it. But I can't afford to strip the building of its drywall just to image the structural members and see if they are weakened or damaged, or to record them for a proper blueprint.
This thought came to me recently because I now see another beam where the rafter tail exposed outside shows damage from a wood destroying organism, looks to be a beetle of some sort, and I was wondering how you can treat a beam internally to kill a pest. I see damage on the outside of the beam in open air, but no damage yet in the attic where the beam passes inside the house. It also is 10 X 4 and rises to the peak of the roof at 20 feet, it would be a very expensive job to replace. I Googled this problem (how I found you) and there are companies that have microwave machines that heat up beams internally to a point where any organisms cannot survive but do not set the wood alight. They are low power microwaves sort of like trying to cook a frozen burrito on power level 2. Any bugs will cook internally long before the beam even feels warm. Hitch is there are only a few such companies and it is more expensive than just replacing the beam even though that might cost 30 - 40 thousand.
Is this why we do not have portable imaging machines? Is it too niche? Too expensive to make or buy such a machine? Would it be cheaper to invent anti matter generators or something?
