Roof trusses not braced

Jimbo13

New Member
Bought a bungalow recently that was built in the very late 60's. It has a trussed roof with gable end, one end being 3/4 joined onto the neighbouring bungalow. I noticed the mortar on the verge bulging on the open end gable wall, only on one side of the roof. On further inspection all the tiles follow a curve downwards on that side of the roof are bowed from top to bottom by around 3" in the middle like this )))))))) rather than IIIIIIII.

After climbing into the loft I discovered that there is NO bracing be it longitudinal or diagonal and no ties into either the free open gable wall or the wall adjoining the neighbouring property. The trusses along that side have all bowed. They are all bowed towards the end gable wall, the centre of the diagonal of the last truss which was constructed ~3" from the wall is pressing on the gable wall. The end against the neighbour has pulled away from the wall and the flashing is pulled to the extent I can see skinny slivers of daylight.

This has clearly been like this for some time as the flashing onto the neighbouring property seems to have been fiddled with and there is a bucket inside the loft space to catch drips from where the bow is the worst and so the gap is the biggest.

To limit cost/effort, my plan is to install bracing where it should be (longitudinal along each node and diagonally) which will halt any further movement by making the roof into a single rigid structure. Then perhaps try and shuffle the end few rows of tiles, re-bed the verge tiles and re-flash the joint onto the neighbouring property. Perhaps I will end up shuffling all the tiles as this III((((((III would look very odd.

Any objections? Clearly the ideal would be to remove ALL tiles from that side. Attempt (?) probably unsuccessfully to 'un-bow' the trusses which are probably quite happily settled into their new shape and then re-lay all of the tiles. I can see this escalating into, removing felt, removing battens and before you know replace all the roofing timber due to the trusses being now well settled into being bowed.
 
It's not a big deal in the grand scheme of things, the diagonal braces are the important ones to fit, the laterals neither here nor there.
 
When trussed rafters first started being used they didn't use diagonal braces, until some of the roofs suffered from racking.
 
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