How To Fix A Saggy Roof

hey guys welcome back today i'm back up in the attic doing some work now i've already straightened out the attic leveled out all the insulation fixed all the wiring that was going everywhere i've also sealed up all around the cam lights that are in the ceiling i've sealed the electrical boxes and the tops of the walls with spray foam so there's no air leakage from the downstairs up into the attic so i'm gonna insulate this better but i need to fix some framing before i do that so the owners before we bought this house they had torn out a load-bearing wall downstairs in between the kitchen and the living room and it looks really nice now but the problem was they had to fix that load-bearing issue by putting a beam up here and you can see right here there's a beam running the length of the section where they tore out the wall they have straight supports going up to the peak of the roof to hold the roof up but then instead of putting in these braces that were here originally along the walls that were here they just set them on top of the beams so the problem is right now they are way too steep of a pitch to where that's not holding any weight pushing down the angles of these aren't even cut to match so it's just a couple nails holding it most of them are loose i could almost pull them out by hand and that's no good at all because these are starting to sag from here down there's kind of drooping a little bit it's getting noticeable it's not really really bad but we're gonna fix this by putting in a knee wall along the strong backs on either side of the roof so we're going to get to work doing that and try to fix this issue that we've got because right now this is a mess i don't want to insulate further before we get a chance to fix this now i mentioned strong backs and tying those into the supports to support the trusses and this is a typical style we're gonna be using a two by six stand it up on end at two by four laying flat nailed into that two by six at the bottom we'll nail straight down through that 2x4 into the rafters this will tie every single one together that 2x6 is going to support the load and it will distribute that load across all the rafters that were tying into the span of that two by six now we're going to need two of these strong backs one for each side of the roof and they're going to need to be 16 feet long unfortunately we're only able to get 12 foot boards up into the attic so we're going to have to offset those seams that we can make this a little bit stronger while still having seams in the strong back also my father-in-law's gonna be helping me out with this project he knows a lot more about the stuff than i do so i feel a lot more comfortable with his help on this project [Music] [Music] now all these rafters are tied into that center beam that i mentioned before this is the load bearing beam that they put in and you want to make sure that you're not going too far out with these strong backs or else you're gonna put a lot of pressure down on the ceiling and could cause damage by bowing the ceiling down or cracking the sheetrock so we're only going out two feet from that main beam and all these rafters are tied in we check they have hangers on them they're attached really well so we're not worried about the pressure going down on this two feet is not far enough to cause those boards to warp at all now once the strong back is in place we're gonna come down through here and put three inch long screws into the rafters to pull them up into place you can see a couple of them were a little low so that's gonna be evening everything up and distributing the weight across all of these next we're gonna put two nails from the nail gun in each of these to make sure all everything holds really well once they're all in place [Music] so we know just by the look of these braces they aren't doing anything the roof's already sagging a little bit so it's safe to take these out without doing any damage or causing this to drop anymore so we're going to take all these braces out so we have a little bit better work area and can start installing the new braces once these are all out as well i'm going to use some of these to cut and reuse these two by fours these ones are much longer than the ones we're going to need so i can easily cut the nails off on the ends and not have to bother with those [Music] now we're going to be lifting up on these boards in order to correct the sag in the roof and we're going to be doing this by using a 2x4 to pry on it and this works really well because it limits the amount that you can lift up and also we're going to be using the strong back we just installed to pry on so it's a good gauge to see if we're pushing too hard down on the ceiling to cause any damage that way we can keep a good eye on it instead of using something like a jack where you can't really tell how hard you're pushing up or pushing down on the ceiling this is a lot easier to manage now the next step will be cutting all the supports i'm going to go through and cut all of them ready to go now if any of these need to be trimmed if we can't quite lift up high enough i can certainly do so as needed later on but it's important at this step to make sure that the angles are exactly correct that way the joints will be as close as possible it will be much more load bearing and the nails will hold a lot better too if you have everything tight now you can see as we go down through here i'm gonna be prying up on each individual truss lifting up so that we can put the brace inside and then we're gonna be putting probably four or five nails on the top two by four into the truss and then about five or six down and the strong back into the two by four and threw the two by six into the support as well [Music] hey if you like this video so far don't forget to hit that like button down below it helps me out a ton thanks guys also don't forget to subscribe to the channel i upload a new video each week so if you want to stay up to date on my newest videos and what i'm working on each week around the house and diy projects hit that subscribe button [Music] now this side is in a lot better shape it's not sagging there's a few that we'll need to pry up on but these supports definitely are preventative as well so we don't want this to eventually sag so we're going to be putting in a support on every single trust going down through here as well [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] now we could stop here but we're gonna go a little further and increase the strength of roof a little bit more by adding in two by sixes across the top of these supports right up against the trusses this will tie all of those supports together and tie all the trusses together so that they don't only support their own weight but they start sharing the load with the one beside it as well so that really strengthen it up and keep it from bouncing or if there's any impact on the roof or work being done up there it will support the weight a lot better so again we weren't able to get the full 2x6 up here we had to bring it up in a couple sections so we're going to put in a 12 footer a four footer and then we're going to use another four foot to span the gap in between the two and this will really strengthen it up and tie it all in together as one alright guys thanks for watching hope this video was helpful for you this is really an issue that a lot of older houses have so if you have a saggy roof hopefully this helps you out a lot if you like this video hit that like button down below if you have not subscribed to my channel hit that subscribe button i upload a new diy home improvement video each week so don't miss out and hit that subscribe thanks guys i'll see you in the next one

Channel: SimonSaysDIY

Views: 134,337

Keywords: How to fix a sagging roof, how to keep your room from sagging, how to support you roof, How to correct a saggy roof, Saggy roof, how to support a saggy roof, how to reinforce a sagging roof, Roof is sagging, why is my roof sagging, how to reinforce saggy trusses, why are my trusses sagging, how to correct saggy trusses, how to support roof trusses, how to brace up your roof, how to build supports for a saggy roof, Fixing saggy roof, Correcting sagging roof, roof supports, Roof

Id: ZQpJpOQac-s

Length: 10min 31sec (631 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 13 2021