Supporting Roof Rafters Without Knee Wall

Without support for those spliced boards they ll collapse downwards.

Supporting roof rafters without knee wall.

At the peak the rafters are nailed to a ridge board and at. In a sloped roof common rafters run from the peak of the roof down to the top of the exterior walls of the building. Knee walls are short usually wooden walls installed around the sides of an attic where the rafters meet the floor. Check that the 2 by 4 is plumb with a spirit level.

All outer walls of a home are load bearing as they support the edges of the roof. This indicates that the wall is bearing the weight of those joists supporting upper stories of the home or the roof. Hold up to the rafter a scrap piece of 2 by 4 lumber a few inches longer than the planned knee wall height with its base on the floor. A knee wall is a short wall typically under three feet one metre in height used to support the rafters in timber roof construction.

You can see the image below for an example of a knee wall. In his book a visual dictionary of architecture francis d. Collar ties rafter ties tension beams structural ridge beams. Ching defines a knee wall as a short wall supporting rafters at some intermediate position along their length the knee wall provides support to rafters which therefore need not be large enough.