27 years ago, a friend of my wife’s had a music room added to her house, and now the scissor trusses are apparently failing, the ceiling is cracking, and the walls are bowing out. The trusses were apparently manufactured by an outfit in La Crosse Wisconsin.
Has anyone seen this sort of failure? If so, what was the outcome? She’s wondering whether she’ll have to have the roof completely replaced or whether repairs can be made to the existing trusses, and she’s also of course wondering whether she can get anyone else to help pay for it.
Replies
27 Years ago... No one else will be paying. Who knows that the trusses are failing? Maybe the walls are failing. Maybe the footer is failing. Maybe the music was too loud. These are the statements anyone will make to get around this. I have seen trusses fail for many reasons. I have never had a truss manufacterer step up to take blame. I have never taken the blame. I have never seen an engineer or architect take the blame. If the house is also in Wisconsin, the temperature swings, the snow loads, annual rain fall, cheese production and the number of Lombardi trophies also have an impact. Don't look to the insurance company either. I have not heard of any paying for collapse, which is what they call it. Funny, tornadoes are OK but Snow isn't. ???
Dan,
Run some star anchor plates with cables. Tune cables to E G B D F.
KK
Scissor trusses
Have you had a professional like an engineer etc. look at the problem. Have you talked to the insurance company. Seems these are the folks that can best answer your questions.
I'm just trying to give a hand here, to find out what the options might be, etc. I'm simply wondering if anyone here has run into this, and what they did about it.
If it was built, it can be fixed. I have done something similar(by the sound of it) where a 20' wide breeze way with 6/12 pitch(3/12 inside pitch) had a tree fall on it. We used come alongs and jacks that pull and pushed everything back where it was. Re roof, minor drywall actually and plywood gussets got the owner back in business in days. It was simple to us as it sounds. I can't say how simple that is for you, but the biggest problem people in need always have is finding a helper and not a hoodwinker.
Yeah, I guess it's kind of a given that the ceiling will need to come down, at least in the middle. Then one could in theory jack it up and apply plywood gussets. Slightly complicating this is that it's apparently (I haven't seen it) a second story above the garage, so some care would need to be exercised when jacking to not overload the floor.
I wouldn't jack it up...
I'd cut throught the ceiling drywall near the peak to get a look at where the failure occured. Did the plates or connectors let go? Did wood break? Did it simply creep/deform?
Then I'd go to work pulling the walls back in with cables instead of jacking it up. Pop holes in the exterior walls with the cables running through the walls to lateral clinch supports on the exterior side of the walls so the force is applied to the ouside surface of the wall.
If the walls are high enough where cable ties could be permanently installed, that'd be the safer bet. Pull the walls plumb, do any required repairs or shoring up to the roof structure you can, then make it all purdy.
If this room has low kneewalls so cable ties can't be used as a permanent repair, then the only proper repair might be a tear off and replace.
"Tune the cables to E, G, B, D, F"
Clever. I like that. lol
No way to tell how to fix it when you don't know what's wrong.
Can you get access to the attic and get some pics?
All I know is that it's a cathedral ceiling, the ceiling's cracked, and the walls are bowing out. The owner knows it was built using manufactured trusses, but that's about it. Standard frame construction. (And, of course, with scissor trusses there is no "attic".)
Of course there's an attic. It may not be large enough to crawl around in, but it's there. And you have to get in there to figure out what's wrong before you can attempt any kind of fix.
Sinkin'
Do they have any record of the truss company, or the builder? Was the roofing material used the same as what the truss was designed for, tile vs. comp?
Seems like tracking down the truss company would be a start, maybe get an opinion, probably worth about two cents but could provide a direction.
Yep, do what coonass and mongo suggested.
Although, for a 20 ft span, to tune to E1, you would have to have 30kips of tension on an 1/8" diameter steel wire -- not feasible, you would pull the walls in too far except for the wire breaking first.
maybe coonass could recalculate the tones for you, but you need to get a whale or elephant or scope to 'hear' the notes, <G>