Joist Braces - Structural?

[Jamie McDonald]

Good afternoon all,
I am laying 18mm tongue and groove chipboard flooring in the area above my garage for storage of light/bulky things.

At the centre of the joists where the braces come down from the roof there are a number of rough sawn 1x4 planks nailed to the joist. I am wondering if they are structural or whether they can be safely removed and replaced with the chipboard? It will be much easier to just cut notches in the chip rather than working it around these!

Pictures tell a thousand words, so some are attached.

Thanks for any help,

Jamie

 

[^woody^]

Those are braces connecting all the trusses together. You should see that they are in one piece, or if several pieces each laps several trusses and also each other.

You can replace them, but your new sheets must provide the same level of bracing, ie be lapped so that the restraint covers all the trusses as one, not just sections of two or three based on the chip board length.

 

[chappers]

just move them into the crook to the left where two webs come together at the bottom chord.
Though for bottom chord bracing if you boarded the whole loft and half board staggered overall the whole thing would probably be more rigid than it is currently with a couple of 4x1 braces

 

[Jamie McDonald]

Thanks for the responses guys! I decided to play it safe and leave the bracing in place and cut the chipboard round them.

... Had nothing to do with leaving myself no space to get a full 600x2400 board up there... Honest!...