I am designing a single story home addition (14’x28′) onto the side of my single story house. Attached is a screenshot of the design (using Google Sketchup).
I have run into an issue with the roof framing. As shown, I have inset the front and rear of the addition by 1′ from the main house so that the symmetry of the main house is not ruined (door is in the center with two windows flanking it on each side). The issue is shown at the roof line. The house currently has a 2′ overhang running the entire length of the house that I would like to continue on the gable end. But…from what I have currently drawn, the addition roof will be in the way! I have drawn in a 2×4 (as part of a truss) to minimize the addition roof framing thickness, but even with that, I have measure a bit less than 5″ between the addition roof and house roof. Not enough. And I doubt with that span, a 2×4 truss would be sufficient (haven’t sized that yet). I had originally planned on cutting my own roof with rafters…
Is there anything I can do to solve this, that I may be overlooking? I could inset the addition even more, but then I’d lose space in the interior and the rooms are about as small as I want to make them. I could bring the walls flush with the main house, making the roof flush too, but this would ruin the symmetry, and the house roof would look rather boring and long with a 50’+14’=64′ length. I do plan to add a gable dormer on the front also though.
Thoughts, ideas, comments?
Thanks,
Tom
Replies
I'm a little dense this morning... what area of the roof are you having trouble with again? Is it the back with that dormer sting out? Or do you want the 2' overhang even with the inset walls? Or do you want to keep the troofline exactly the same throughout the whole length of the house?
Draw a circle on the scetch of where you are having the problem.
So you don't want it to look like one continuous roof from the top, you want to have a step down from the original roof to the addition, but at the same time, you want a continuous overhang on the sides? The only way that is going to happen is to frame the addition roof at a lower pitch than the original. At first thought, it would seem ugly, but who knows, maybe not.
Is the top of your roof visible from the street? If not, who cares what it looks like if you can't see it?
If you did decide to go with the long, boring roof at the same pitch and overhang as the original, you would not need to resize the footprint of the addition, you just add a kneewall at the top of it (or frame it to the same height as the original) and it will line up, however you will have a greater overhang in the addition area than in the original house.
Move it back
Assuming the visual symetry issues are only in the front, move your addition back a foot. That way, in the front, it will be set back 2 feet and presumably, the roof levels will be 10" or so. The back wall will then be continuous with the existing wall and the roof will be continuous with the existing roof in the back. If you go this route, don't measure twice, measure three or more times before ordering the trusses as a small variance in height or pitch from the existing roof will be a big problem.