Hello, I am in the preliminary stages of a ranch home remodel, and am interested in enlarging my living and raising the ceiling joists to create higher ceilings. Below is a quick layout of the house and the way the joists cuurently run, in the area of interest. Without going into extreme detail, the entire garage and dining room where added to the home before I purchased it, so the walls that I want to remove, were at one point exterior walls. The roof is a 4/12 tradition design with 2x6 rafters 16 o.c, and 2x4 collar ties every 4ft in the upper third of the rafters. What I would like to do is remove the walls separating the dining area, which will enlarge the the family room, and at the same time, vault the ceiling in that area. I understand, that most will recommend an engineers services, however I am only in the planning stages right now. What am thinking is to build the load bearing wall between the kitchen and family roof up to the rafters, essentially creating a knee wall. I would then run "rafter ties" from that new "knee wall" to the rafters, however raised to the lower 1/3 of the rafter. This essentially creates a saltbox style roof in that area. Any comments?

Current ceiling joist layout


Walls removed


Side view framing

 

Yep, you're right, I am going to recommend an engineer (too much load bearing wall removal). That said, you can do what you want, this is your home, but I assume you have figured out this is going to cost a whole lot to do.

 

Thank you, I will certainly look into those services. There is only one "load bearing" wall being removed from the space, and the load it is bearing is the ceiling joists. This is ranch house with no attic storage, so the joists are the only load on the wall. As I see it, removing the joists in the living room, and running them parallel with the rafters will make the roof structure stronger. From what I understand the roof design is a series of triangles, consisting of rafters and ceiling joists. Currently, the family room joists are running perpendicular to the rafts, thus eliminating the "triangle" in that whole area. Being that the ceiling joists would no longer be there, the two walls creating the dining room would no longer be needed. I understand an engineer services are a common response, however I am just trying to get some feedback, as I know there is a lot of experience on the forum. Thanks again

 

Things get unbelievably complicated when you remodel a house that has any buildovers (new roofs that were framed on top of the old ones) so it's very possible that you might need to remove large sections of your roof and ceiling joists to do what you're envisioning. Anything is possible, but unfortunately we can't give much structural advice without being able to actually see the way it was framed. If you provided some pictures of the framing in the attic it might help, but it's usually not possible for us to get an overall view if we aren't there in person... like the structural engineer will be.

It sounds feasible, but what is below the 1st story where that load bearing wall will be located. (i.e. your kneewall wall). There has to be a load path to the foundation there if there isn't one currently. Is this house on a slab, or on a basement? where are the load bearing walls in the basement, in relation to the 1st floor walls?

 

Thank you XSleeper, the kitchen wall (knee wall/load bearing wall) carries down through basement to the foundation. I tried to do the best I could to illustrate the ceiling framing in the diagram, but it is not the greatest. Aside from the 2x6 rafters, and 2x4 collar ties every 4 ft., there is not much else describe about the roof structure. The ceiling joists in the family room run perpendicular to the rafters, and rest on the walls on each end. The ceiling joists to the left of the family room (above dining room) run parallel to the rafters, and rest on the kitchen wall (load bearing) on one end, where they also sister up to the kitchen ceiling joists. It seems that after the ceiling joists are removed and the knee wall is built on the load bearing kitchen wall, it would closely resemble a saltbox roof. I also feel that the current family room joists running perpendicular is a structural weakness. Thanks again for following up

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