How To Remove Existing Wooden Roof Rafters From A Garage

Discard the wood in a garbage bin as you work to make the cleanup easier.

How to remove existing wooden roof rafters from a garage.

Remove the rotted wood with a chisel and pry bar. If the roof slope is steeper than 9 inches in 12 inches of run it doesn t take much width to end up with a nice room 12 feet wide with an 8 foot. In face you won t be replacing the rafter but adding a support on the side along its length a process known as sistering. Repeat the process for the joist beneath your old roof rafter.

Use a circular saw to cut two sets of new rafters from the same size wood by the same dimensions. Use your tape measure to record the distance of both rafter legs. Roof trusses are a common means of support and load bearing. This can easily be accomplished by using a hammer and a crowbar.

Remove the existing roof. This can seem like a huge job but in fact it s not too difficult. The rotten wood will come away easily. Measure the dimensions of the old rafters beneath your roofing surface.

When taking the roofing materials off be sure to extend the path of demolishing to each existing truss on each side of the damaged one. The sad fact is your builder could have installed attic trusses over this garage for just slightly more than what the existing trusses cost. The first step when removing a wood roof truss is to disassemble the existing roof that is causing a load upon the truss. Remember any alterations to a roof should be undertaken only with an engineer.