Is our roof safe

[sputnik57]

We have been living in our house 16 odd years and of late have noticed that we have small walls in the loft that hold up wooden beams that act as some sort of roof support. I think they're called purlins from reading online. Our house is semi detached and there is a single purlin on the left side but on the right 2 purlins meet/overlap siting on the wall.

The walls look like they used to extend into the loft and have been trimmed back. They didn't seem like they ever crossed the whole room as they're on metal beams that comes about a meter into the loft on each side. When we first moved in, the right hand side when looking towards the non-party wall was completely enclosed by plaster board as the previous occupier must have been in the process of making the loft into a bit of a room, albeit with a slingsby type ladder up to it. We subsequently removed a lot of the plaster board when we had a leak. The left hand side wall was never completely behind the plasterboard and poked through by a brick length or so. The house has been surveyed twice since we bought, once for the sale and once for a mortgage change and both times at least the left hand side of the loft would have had the small wall holding the purlins visible but nothing was mentioned to us.

Can anyone tell me - these walls:
* Are they safe, could they collapse or similar
* If they're not safe, can they be economically fixed
* If they can be fixed, is it just a matter of getting a roofer out
* Would this pass a survey if we were selling the house

It's only lately I really started to think about the situation, I've Googled online and have never managed to find any clear answer about this. I'm starting to get anxious about it and before I start calling in professionals I just wanted some sort of grounding on what I'm looking at.

Right side where the 2 purlins cross

Left side

Thanks

 

[mikeey84]

Have you noticed any movement? Any cracks in ceilings, any noticeable bow in the roof when viewed from outside?

Can you take a picture stood back with a widest view of the loft thats possible?

 

[sputnik57]

Thanks for the reply. I've never noticed anything out of place, roof looks fine to my untrained eye, ceilings have no cracks that I can spot. The only thing of note is the supporting wall on the right doesn't look particularly straight and I can't remember if it always looked that way. I did have a builder (not a roofer) look at it a few months back and he didn't seem particularly concerned about it, said to plasterboard it all back up and leave it alone but the kids are sleeping in the rooms below and it's got me a bit panicked.

I'll take some wider photos this evening.

 

[^woody^]

The brick support walls are normal. Often built by the apprentice so mostly built leaning over to start with.

What's not normal is the attempt to plasterboard (which adds additional loading), and create a room of some sort?

 

[sputnik57]

The brick support walls are normal. Often built by the apprentice so mostly built leaning over to start with.

What's not normal is the attempt to plasterboard (which adds additional loading), and create a room of some sort?

That's looks like what the previous occupier had done - added the plasterboarding and there are 2 velux windows too but I don't know when they did any of that, I'd not given it a second thought when we bought the house and only really started to think about it recently. The adjoining neighbour I think does have their loft floored and walled in some fashion as well but as far as I know, haven't completely converted it or had stairs put in.
I'd never thought about the additional load of the plasterboard, was just wary of the trimming back of the supporting walls. I'll add the plasterboard load to my list of things to worry about!

 

[cdbe]

Here's one I prepared earlier:

The force acting on them is downwards so although you could probably kick them over quite easily it's not going to happen in normal "use".

 

[sputnik57]

The force acting on them is downwards so although you could probably kick them over quite easily it's not going to happen in normal "use".

I wonder is yours different as you have the beams across the way that keeps the force downwards whereas I'm guessing my forces are inwards at an angle.

Have you noticed any movement? Any cracks in ceilings, any noticeable bow in the roof when viewed from outside?

Can you take a picture stood back with a widest view of the loft thats possible?

Here are some more somewhat grainy photos of the whole loft

From party wall end

From non-party wall end

As big an image of the right side as I can squeeze in

 

[DiyNutJob]

The metal beam was probably installed as a part of the loft conversion - you can see this in loft conversion videos. Then the bricks were laid on top to support the roof. What you have should be legit.

 

[mikeey84]

I am by no means an expert, but there is nothing there that would unduly worry me, but then that is not necessarily a good guide!

Best thing to do, if its causing worry or stress, is to get a structural engineer to inspect and produce a report.

It will cost, but lack of stress is worth a few hundred quid, and they are unlikely to try and recommend un needed work like an unscrupulous builder or roofer would after a "free" quote.