Bear with me b/c I know zero about construction.
The houses we've owned in the past always had very broad sturdy looking boards in the floor of the attic. They were not prefabricated attics, but built piece by piece.
We are about to purchase a house that has an attic/roof supported with pre-fab wood truss (what I think is simply called a "common" truss, certainly not a made for storage truss). My question is this: how safe is it to walk around in our roof? These boards seem so small in comparison to the wood that made up our previous attic-floors. My husband plans to go up there pre-drywall to add more cable/speaker wire and I want to make sure he won't come crashing down if he steps on one of those boards.
Does anyone know what kind of weight they can bear for non-lengthy periods of time?
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Trusses will easily support your weight, as well as any engineered wind and snow loads, but they are not designed for any significant dead load on the chords. In other words, don't expect to put down plywood to add significant storage space. The trusses are extremely strong for the timber size used. They are economical and, as engineered structural members, sometimes better than built roofs. They just are not designed to be modified in any way.
So take a stroll, store lightweight items, but don't cut, modify or construct a storage area and you will be just fine.
So take a stroll, store lightweight items, but don't cut, modify or construct a storage area and you will be just fine.
