Would like to make more space in my loft by changing the location of some of the trusses

[DIY-builder-Dad]

Hello everyone, my first post here. The height of my loft isn’t that high so can’t ever use it as an actual room, but I hoped to make it easier to move about and use it for storage, maybe even a space to play Lego for the kids. So I wondered how easy it would be to change the triangulation of the trusses, I have a couple of photos and drew a line over the ones I was thinking of changing and then showed a photos of an example of how the truss would be vertical instead of at an angle. ( I wouldn’t move the smaller truss just the longer one that eats into the space. 

 

what do you guys think? 
ideally don’t want to spend a lot of money on it. 
can send more photos and videos if that helps, appreciate your opinion.

[Big Jimbo]

You either need a structural engineer to advise you, or you need to leave it well alone.  That's a trussed roof. You can't just start cutting bits out. End of conversation i'm afraid.

[Thorfun]

1 minute ago, Big Jimbo said:

You either need a structural engineer to advise you, or you need to leave it well alone.  That's a trussed roof. You can't just start cutting bits out. End of conversation i'm afraid.

+1. 

[DIY-builder-Dad]

I thought that may well be the case, thanks for advice. 

[ProDave]

Build a decent garden building for useful additional play space etc.

[Adsibob]

@DIY-builder-Dad you could certainly remove those rafters, and then the roof would fall down.

 

 Only way to do it really is with lots of steel beams, and that’s probably a non starter, because the house wasn’t designed for that kind of weight up there.

 

 If you really need the extra space:

 get a design for a proper loft conversion. I think it will cost minimum £30k… and then some. Garden room far cheaper.

[joe90]

I have done a few loft conversions for extra space not bedrooms but used a friendly SE to advise me. On a similar loft I removed those intrusive timbers but replaced them first with purlins, i have even used glulams BUT, you must get proper structural advise or you could cause damage that your house insurance will not cover.

[dpmiller]

I did exactly this in our last place under guidance of an SE. Definitely doable, but it takes loads of timber, bolts, and nails, and the junctions all need to be designed.

[FuerteStu]

If its space you need.. Consider what I did in my last place... 

 

I added pieces of 2x2 (red) on the truss, and lengths of ply (blue) down the length of the roof. 

 

This doubled the usable area for storage without having to stack anything up.. Leaving the central area free for access and not removing any structural members