Can I remove some roof trusses ?

[jhilb]

3 car garage. 1 door is a double-door, the other door ebing a single door.

In the single door space I'd like to put a 4 post lift so I can stack two cars.

2 Problems.

Garage door opener will have to run along roof line if possible. I think that is doable.

2nd bigger problem is that 4 roof trusses would need to be cut and restructured somehow. The top car on the lift would interfere with the long truss member.

there are a total of about 20 roof trusses spanning the entire garage end-to-end. only 4 are really in the way.

Any suggestions... ?

see drawing of current truss structure at

http://www.jhilb.com/Garage_Door_Tracking.jpg

Thanks,
Jeff

[Jack the Contractor]

Jeff, you stated that you had 2 problems. If you take out trusses, you will have even a bigger problem. Like your garage roof laying on your floor. No, do not take out, or cut any trusses. They were made for your garage. They are designed to keep your garage strong and rigid. You will have a real big problem if you alter them. Sorry about that. Also, your opener will not work if you run it along your roof line. In the installation instructions, it states that the open must be level level and other such hanging information. Your garage was not designed to stack 2 cars, and to accomplish this, it would be very costly. In fact, if you just added a couple of more thousand to the cost of converting your garage, you could just about build a garage that would fit your needs. Have a good day.

[Andrew R.]

You can achieve what you want to do by scissoring new rafters to the truss rafters and then remove the joist chords. It can be done but you need to get an engineer to design this.

[jhilb]

I had thought that the easy way would be to just pop an extra 4 feet or so onto the garage and rebuild the roof. Which is really the best way. But the village won't let me do it because this house is in a subdivision and they want them all to appear the same.

Scissoring. I cannot picture in my mind how this would look. If I searched google what would I search for? Scissor rafters?

Thanks,
Jeff

[Andrew R.]

Probably a better word would be sistering, nailing beside existing chords, however scissoring could work too,,,,,,that is dropping in a rafter beside the existng but at a lower angle. Of course you would need to put a plywood gusset beside them both to weld them together.

[jhilb]

Thanks. I have to get in touch with a local engineer. I am pretty sure this can be done, it's just gonna take some work.

I now need to find a garage door opener manufacturer that has something that can be mounted to the roof. I actually find follow-the-roof-slope garage tracks already but no openers. They got to be out there, I just gotta find em.

[Andrew R.]

There are door operators now that are mounted above the header, would that work? :coffee:

[Bruce H]

There's a saying in my office "Almost anything can be done if your wallet is thick enough". You definately need a structural engineer to look at your roof. As far as the opener, go to the yellow pages and find a garage door company that does commercial work. What you need is a jackshaft operator. It mounts on the wall beside the door and is attached to the torsion spring shaft with a chain drive. Good luck.

Bruce

[jhilb]

Hmm, not sure if that would work. Well, it would, if that particular operator still allows the track to run up the inside roof line. Most that I have seen use a "roll-up" type garage door and not the standard panel door. Unless the one your speaking of does.... ?

Your right. Unfortunately I am kind of backed into the corner on this one. Either it has to happen this way or not at all. Could quite be not at all but I am not giving up yet.

Jackshaft, never heard of that. Yes, I agree. I need both an engineer to check the place out and a garage door specialist.