Hi, My next house purchase (hopefully) has a garage with fink trusses. This is where you have a W shaped wood within the triangle.
I would like to convert these fink trusses to attic trusses fort storage purposes.
The underside of the fink trusses is completely accessible. So could I put up three off 2.5 metre long 9 inch wood beams on joist hangers ( the two long walls are masonry) that are right angles to the truss direction. one would be in the middle, the other two would be directly under the point at which the W meeds the roof tiles supporting beams. This would be at an interval of 1.25m, 2.5m & 3.75m ( the garage is 5m long)
Could I then put in appropriately cut vertical wood supports between the outer two 9 inch joists and where each W meets the sloping beam, using gang nail plates, and then put in horizontal wood or metal bars across the apex, gang nailing onto the top 1/4 of the fink truss at the four places where the woods cross.
I woudl then saw out the W's....... and chipboard the floor area out, giving me the attic storage space.
I've seen a website that does attic conversions using Telebeams which are telescopic aluminium beams..... you apply two for each Fink truss..... at
600 quid for a single telebeam, thats not cheap. The other method is steel girders, but thats not cheap either and that could be resting on the Up & over garage door's wood lintel and raises the attic's floor, reducing the usable attic space.Or would I be better off taking the tiles off, removing the fink trusses ( for the wood burner) and putting on attic trusses and then putting the roof tiles back on?
I am after a cost effective solution for now as it is likely that in 5 to 10 years time, we will extend at the back of the garage for a workshop or tandem garage, and on top to extend the upstairs two smallest bedrooms as well as the exisiting house's loft.
Regards
Stephen..