Truss Roof Load Bearing Walls

Roof trusses can span much longer distances than joists so if you have a gable roof the re is a good chance that it can span between exterior walls and not require an interior bearing wall for support.

Truss roof load bearing walls.

Load bearing interior wall under truss roof. Most simple construction truss roof home s roof and trusses are supported by the exterior walls perpendicular to the trusses. This means that at the top floor of a house the interior walls may not be supporting the weight of the roof structure and the weight of snow. Trusses unless a special girder truss which accepts the loads of attached trusses have no interior load bearing walls.

That is the beauty of trusses. Roof trusses support a roof s weight by transferring the weight load downward and outward to the building s bearing walls. We usually build on the exterior walls set the trusses and do all of the chord blocking and truss bracing before buildin. For example a gable end truss may be designed with support members that transmit the roof weight load outward to the side walls allowing the end wall directly below it to have breaks or openings in it that would otherwise be impossible.

Technically the interior partition walls shouldn t even be touching the truss bottom cord during rough in but they usually are. With your trusses spanning the exterior walls for the full run of the house no interior walls will be load bearing the splices on trusses are engineered to be self supportive according to the plate sizing the fact that they land over an interior wall has nothing to do with that wall being load bearing trusses are engineered to span exterior wall to exterior wall self supporting. I ve never seen a 30 truss that needed intermediate bearing but i can t say that it has never happened. Engineered roof truss systems may be designed to eliminate the need for load bearing walls or change where the bearing walls are located.