Vault ceiling and leave trusses in place?

[tony02535]

Just finishes working on a remodel where vaulted ceilings were installed in a house built with a truss roof. Involved total tear off and rebuild. I am wondering if anyone has ever vaulted a ceiling in this situation and simply left the trusses in place and box them in? Might look kind of busy but in a smaller space with 24" spacing it might not be so bad. Any thoughts...

[dlhunter]

Are you suggesting to leave the trusses exposed? I don't think I've ever seen a set of trusses I would leave exposed as a finished product.

[dgbldr]

There's an idea! Coffered trusses, anyone?

[johnsonsmith]

Hi,
I want to know are you trying to leave the trusses exposed. However, if you think to reinstall trusses then it can be reinstalled as it doesn't take much time and is very popular thing amongst contractors.Replacing trusses is possible with a vaulted ceiling, but it is highly technical and cost productive.

[BOC Contracting]

I remember a JLC or Fine Homebuilding article from awhile back about exposing the trusses in a ranch home. This might have been it: http://www.finehomebuilding.com/how-...14&ac=ts&ra=fp

-Ben

[NW Architect]

Bottom chords need lateral bracing

[James Eggert]

Otterson Fireplace HR.jpgI, too, am a little confused by the question, but I think someone thought about what they wanted after the trusses were installed.

I installed sloped scissor trusses on an addition, so we could have the vaulted ceiling...BUT....we used doubled regular trusses every six feet and then wrapped them in cedar, and the ceiling was also covered in T&G cedar. Made a nice look with the wood ceiling and the wrapped double trusses created a visual mass.

Note the problem with trying to match the cedar colorations! They liked it, i was unhappy after the staining.

By the way, pay for the extra truss at each psuedo beam location, at that time it was about $80. You need the mass, you can't pad it out for less because of labor and materials, just use the center of the ganged trusses to keep your 24" layout and you're good to go! You get to immediately wrap it without nailing up all the crappy little pieces some contractors want to use to save money!!

[ThingOfBeauty]

There's a bunch of little houses in a neighborhood here where a few people have done something like this.
Roofs are 5/12 site-built trusses. You can cut a 6' x 6' hole in the ceiling, put two skylights (with one truss bay between), and drywall the new shaft around the truss chords and webs.
Some people box out the trusses, others just paint them.
It's a little bit hokey in some way of looking at it, but much better than no skylights!

I've never done what OP is suggesting (if I read correctly), sistering new structural rafters on to trusses and cutting out the lower members...on the face of it, seems possible, but:
--wouldn't it be hard to get the rafters in place without removing some of the roof sheathing?
--wouldn't the seat cut be too deep if the trusses are 2x4 top chord and the new rafters 2x10s or whatever?
--is the roofing ready for a replacement soon anyway?
--are you saving much by the time you wrangle all those rafters into place?
I guess it seems possible in the right circumstances, but it might not be as useful in others.