They got a great deal on the trusses...

[Kenton H. Shepard, CMI]

but they had to be altered a bit to fit on a home with a wider span, so they just added another bottom chord and scabbed it to the old bottom chord! Genius at work! Check out the bow in the tails.

[Richard A. Hetzel]

Something's fishy. Those uprights are not original either; they're not connected with gang-nail plates, and they don't intersect the other members at panel points. It almost looks like the trusses were added above existing ceiling joists, and the ceiling joists were hung from the trusses by the plywood scabs. I wonder why one of the ceiling joists were doubled? Oh, now I see a little gap in one of the members. Might there have been a load-bearing wall removed on the story below?

[Marcel R. Cyr]

Originally Posted by kshepard

but they had to be altered a bit to fit on a home with a wider span, so they just added another bottom chord and scabbed it to the old bottom chord! Genius at work! Check out the bow in the tails.

Kenton, I have never seen something like that.

What is on the roof that necessitated those long nails through the plywood sticking down over 1&1/2"?

Those 2"x4" inbetween the existing ceiling joist and the sisters look like nailers for something underneath.

This is literally an existing ceiling framing with manufactured trusses installed, and if you blow up the picture, you can see that the ends of the truss are bearing on the ends of the existing joist and bearing on the tail section of the truss which is meant and designed for an overhang.

The scaps from the truss bottom chord and the existing ceiling framing is what is holding the existing framing and ceiling.
2x4 uprights were added with a couple of nails and I fail to see what they are doing structurally.

Why was the insulation left out?

This has got to be the most unorthodox set up I have seen in framing.

JMHO

Marcel

[Kenton H. Shepard, CMI]

You're both right... it's wierd, the trusses were bearing on their tails, newer web braces were installed, I don't know why, and the truss bottom chords have been scabbed to second (lower) bottom chords which probably were the original ceiling joists, meaning the the original roof was conventionally framed.

The block line you mention, Marcel... I don't know. no reason for it that I can see. All ceilings in the home were the same hight and the block line runs down the middle of the kitchen. The home interior looked like it hadn't been touched since '73. Single-pane aluminum mostly.

I saw/smelled no evidence of fire. The home was bult in '73. The insulation was pulled back when I arrived. Upon entering the attic, I stuck my hand down into the insulation and hit something hard at 3 1/2 inches which I thought was ceiling drywall.

At that point I assumed it was just 3 1/2 inches of mineral wool attic insulation and that was that. If this insulation hadn't been pulled back, I'd have missed it. The attic hatch was in the gable so it was easy to miss the extra thickness which would be more apparent when climbing through a ceiling hatch.

The photo is from the area above the kitchen and dining room. The kitchen shares the stairwell wall. In the ext. photo it's just inboard of the patio cover. Pretty normal-looking home except for the trusses.

[Richard A. Hetzel]

Maybe there is no center bearing wall, so the trusses have to clear-span the entire house, and the ceiling joists are hung from the trusses.