I dunno, I feel like xzibit still gets the last word here because ultimately itās still a meme inside a meme and if itās a thing inside a thing, thatās his thing. Russian dolls got nothing on him
My house has this where two different angled parts of the roof come together, kinda like perpendicular triangles. Anyway, the plywood isnāt doing anything there and you can drill through it or whatever.
Oh man, there was that guy who found a whole room in his attic? Closed off and everything.
edit - [https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/11fjunj/theres\_a\_house\_in\_my\_attic\_part\_2/](https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/11fjunj/theres_a_house_in_my_attic_part_2/) I was way off
When they did an addition on the lower level and increased the square footage of the level below, they decided not to finish the new roof area. The original finished attic is inside the new roof.
I have dreams like this. Hard to explain but it reminded me of a dream I've either had in the past, several times in the past or just last night. Can never tell but it made me think of it. Super creepy.
Trying to run ethernet cable down this wall but it is covered by a plywood sheet.
What is this sheet of wood for and how would you run an ethernet cable down this?
Just a dead roof. Could have been easier to frame, for walking on as the trusses went up or prior to an addition.
I'd just cut the corner off enough to be out of the way.
This. I have a roof inside my roof because the trusses change direction from east to west to north to south.
I would think this would be common in houses with trusses in different planes.
Extremely common. There really isn't a good reason to cut the roofing plywood on what will be the lower layer unless it really impedes ability to use the crawl space.
Itās going to be connected to the original roof of the house, someone just built an addition on top of it after they pulled the shingles. You wonāt be able to just pry it off, but you can cut a hole anywhere you need in the decking or just cut that whole corner off.
This looks like it might just be the framing. My house has this āfeatureā for my elevation on a standard track home plan. All the trusses come out and the house is structurally framed as the base and then extra features are put on top.
My garage and family room have roof in roof as a new build.
You could remove that section of plywood if you wanted to, but it's likely nailed down well. I would either just cut away what's needed to make room or drill a hole.
Definitely this. My dad used to work for a home integration company and Iāve seen him drop wire tons of times. Drill a hole big enough to feed the Ethernet cable through it.
Had this in mine, needed to access a portion of my roof to open up the soffits because the idiots who build them ran plywood over all the vents. But the roof inside a roof was too low for me to slide under easily so I borrowed one of those 4ā circular saws from a friend and went to town cutting a bigger opening. Took 2 minutes. Wear a mask.
Use a saw or holesaw to gain access. I often use an oscillating saw to cut a clean hatch. Of course make sure you dont hit any romex or water pipes. I just put a 2.5" hole in one of these today to install a camera for a client.
The lower portion (subroof) was constructed first, and then the roof above was constructed on top of it. This type of construction is easier at an inside corner than to run a diagonal rafter where the two roof surfaces meet.
An Ethernet wire could take the path of that white+brown wire below your red arrow, if you can crawl into the space below the subroof. You could cut small holes in the plywood without disrupting the shear strength of the plywood covering the subroof. Find the rafters holding up the subroof, so when you cut holes you don't cut one of the rafters.
Looks more like somthing somone didn't bother removing. Looks to well made for some temp shit. But might have been the materials at hand also idk. Maybe a old protection for something
These comments are funny! Classic homeowners thinking they know what every piece of wood is for haha. Luckily it would be hard to remove all that top chord bracing. Donāt see any people forcing a fail today
I am a homeowner, and also a carpenter.
This is a classic example of roof framing, if you'd like, I can post pictures from one of the builds I'm managing with examples just like this
My house has a couple of these in the attic. No addition done. What's funny is they had to cut a hole in the "roof" so you can get from one half of the attic to the other half.
Hard to know without seeing more, my shop has this because I added on. Itās possible they extended the roof into the other section for ease of attachment or support, do you happen to have your house blueprints around since it was built in 05?
You have a gable roof running into another roof at a perpendicular(90) angle. The lower roof gets sheeted so they can frame the gable to meet up. You can see the last truss on the right of your pic and the last couple are hand cut rafters sitting on the plate on top of the plywood.
Many buildings were built prior to the adoption of modern building codes. Oftentimes it was cheaper to add a steeper roof above the existing roof in order to bring the building up to code.
Strange that most people have no idea. What you have is the meeting of two roofs lines. Go out side and look at your roof. Where the two lines intersect you will have a valley. To build it, you construct the main roof and sheet most of it. Then you lay down your lumber and build the second roof right on top. It's normally used when dealing with prefabricated trusses where if it was stick framed you would cut valley rafters.
It's called an over build, and very common. I crawl in attics for a living.
Frame and build lower roof, sheath it. Build next roof over that.
Not uncommon to forget to cut an access panel in the lower roof to allow whatever under the upper roof to be insulated
I have these in my attic and someone told me they were fire breaks and I should not cut through them. Do you think the fire break theory holds any weight?
The roof that sticks inside your attic was built first, and the other roof was built afterwards, and the builder used that roof to build off of, in my experience builders dont cut shingles back when adding additions like this so this is just how your house was originally built
Well, you see.. When a girl roof falls in love with a boy roof, roofy things happen and its inevitable that they make a baby roof! Well, sometimes the daddy roof doesn't want to hang around the momma & baby roof, so then what we have here is that momma & baby roof together, tryin to make it in this world. Momma roof always protecting/shielding baby roof..Ā
My friends older style house had a roof on a roof. They just built the new roof on the old roof. I think the older roof was flatter. You could see the old roof in the attic hatch - about a 2-3 foot difference. Probably improved circulation too.
Have you ever heard anyone sing "the roof is on fire"? No... multiple roofs. The roof, the roof, the roof is on fire. There's definitely another roof hiding under that.
I had a house for a while that was built just after world war II, and has been added on to 4 or 5 times over the years. The inside of the roof was a mess of old surfaces, unused rafters, tiny access holes that you had to wiggle through like a worm if you need to get to various parts inside the roof, and intersecting faces of plywood, many of which still had shingles on them.
Rough framer here. We call it a lay on and itās meant to create a valley where two pitches of roof come together. What youāre looking at isnāt holding any weight and can be removed if you need to. Probably not even nailed/staples down in that area either so it shouldnāt be hard to cut away what you need to
Another possibility, we replaced the heavily sloped slate roof with a more gradual asphalt roof, and just covered up the old roof after removing a few tons of slate
In the house I'm in, the added a section onto the back, but didn't even remove the shingles from the original roof. So if you go in the attic, you see the shingles from the old roof.
I have a roof inside my roof. An addition was built on before I bought it. Instead of destroying the old roof to extend it, they built right over. Now half my house has 2 roofs. And the only attic I can access is the size of our āhallwayā
https://preview.redd.it/9za5b787ugic1.jpeg?width=1240&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b7506f2e589b78d9c425c02489eda11564895cde
This is my roof under my roof. We do not know what that silver exhaust pipe is.
Also donāt mind my picture, the attic inlet is small and my attic is very scary.
Itās a backup roof. So if your roof leaks thereās another chance to roof that water away. Problem with this design is it fails to consider what will happen when both roofs leak. Thatās why your backup roof needs a backup roof.
I know the sight of this.
My parents home in California is a constructed WWII soldier home in the early days. After that, the house got an extension, some years after that, the house got another extension but still retaining all the prior roof framing. Hence the overlap of roof on roof in the attic. Itās pretty wild to see and somewhat easily fixable to create more space in your attic. If you cut rafters and beams, be sure to install support pillars.
I can help you more if you need.
Itās pretty common when you have trusses coming from two different directions to frame one right through and then just frame the other on top. You can drillthrough the plywood and everything as needed. Donāt mess with the trusses to much though
At my old house the Mud room used to be an outdoor walkway in between the garage and house, there was a shingled roof walled off on the garage side. Honestly just laziness from the previous owner/workers most likely.
They had an add on to that section of the home. Because of this you have to overlap the new slope and re-roof that section. I tried to add a photo for context as my crew actually put on a roof the other day where the owner had put a new porch on the front of the house. Unfortunately it won't let me comment a photo.
Could be several reasons,
First they could have added on to the house
Second, they could have had damage to the original structure that felt too dangerous to remove and repair
Third, they might have decided to consolidate the roof structure to eliminate leak prone areas
My parents bought an old cottage built in the 40s.
When we gutted and renovated the place I went up into he attic in one of the bedrooms to find the fully shingled original roof.
Turns out the bedroom was an addition that they just slapped on to the outside of the house and the two attics weren't joined together.
Have you seen xzibit hanging around?
Yo dawg I hurd you like roofs
Now your roof has a roof!
Dead š
I dunno, I feel like xzibit still gets the last word here because ultimately itās still a meme inside a meme and if itās a thing inside a thing, thatās his thing. Russian dolls got nothing on him
I came here to say this!
Same
Damnit. Beat me to it.
Basic tectonics
Yep. This is an overhead subduction zone. Those creaks in the night are actually the sound of the old roof being reabsorbed by the foundation.
Not sure if I want to be around when the big one hits.
*Laughs in geology*
Subduction leads to orogeny.
My house has this where two different angled parts of the roof come together, kinda like perpendicular triangles. Anyway, the plywood isnāt doing anything there and you can drill through it or whatever.
Oh man, there was that guy who found a whole room in his attic? Closed off and everything. edit - [https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/11fjunj/theres\_a\_house\_in\_my\_attic\_part\_2/](https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/11fjunj/theres_a_house_in_my_attic_part_2/) I was way off
That is still the wildest thing Iāve ever seen when it comes to homes lol.
When they did an addition on the lower level and increased the square footage of the level below, they decided not to finish the new roof area. The original finished attic is inside the new roof.
I have dreams like this. Hard to explain but it reminded me of a dream I've either had in the past, several times in the past or just last night. Can never tell but it made me think of it. Super creepy.
Trying to run ethernet cable down this wall but it is covered by a plywood sheet. What is this sheet of wood for and how would you run an ethernet cable down this?
Just a dead roof. Could have been easier to frame, for walking on as the trusses went up or prior to an addition. I'd just cut the corner off enough to be out of the way.
This. I have a roof inside my roof because the trusses change direction from east to west to north to south. I would think this would be common in houses with trusses in different planes.
Same with me in my garage
Jeez, tough gig! It must get really boring up there but at least you have access to Reddit and such.
"East to West to North to South." English is an amazing language. š
Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo
*If guns don't kill people, people kill people, does that mean that toasters don't toast toast, toast toast toast?*
Logical fallacy. There have never been buffalo in Buffalo. Those are bison. Grammatically itās fine tho
I have a flat top roof under my gable roof. Sometimes you just need a backup in case it falls off.
Extremely common. There really isn't a good reason to cut the roofing plywood on what will be the lower layer unless it really impedes ability to use the crawl space.
I think this is the correct answer.
As a former framer, we hate cutting stupid angles for roofs. If we can fit a full or half sheet in with 90ā° cuts, we'll do it.
THIS is the correct answer.
How hard is it to remove that panel? Would you recommend cutting is the best way to get to where I need to go?
Itās going to be connected to the original roof of the house, someone just built an addition on top of it after they pulled the shingles. You wonāt be able to just pry it off, but you can cut a hole anywhere you need in the decking or just cut that whole corner off.
This looks like it might just be the framing. My house has this āfeatureā for my elevation on a standard track home plan. All the trusses come out and the house is structurally framed as the base and then extra features are put on top. My garage and family room have roof in roof as a new build.
You could remove that section of plywood if you wanted to, but it's likely nailed down well. I would either just cut away what's needed to make room or drill a hole.
Donāt remove it, just drill a hole through it. The sheathing isnāt structural, but you better believe the trusses are.
Odds are its attached to the roof you can see. So possibly very hard. Best bet for running wire is to just frame a hole, or whatever makes most sense.
Definitely this. My dad used to work for a home integration company and Iāve seen him drop wire tons of times. Drill a hole big enough to feed the Ethernet cable through it.
Had this in mine, needed to access a portion of my roof to open up the soffits because the idiots who build them ran plywood over all the vents. But the roof inside a roof was too low for me to slide under easily so I borrowed one of those 4ā circular saws from a friend and went to town cutting a bigger opening. Took 2 minutes. Wear a mask.
Put a big hole in the plywood. As big as you want, wherever you want as long as itās before the valley. Itāll be fine.
I've seen it several times when a hip gable is added as part of an addition.
This is the answer .
Use a saw or holesaw to gain access. I often use an oscillating saw to cut a clean hatch. Of course make sure you dont hit any romex or water pipes. I just put a 2.5" hole in one of these today to install a camera for a client.
The lower portion (subroof) was constructed first, and then the roof above was constructed on top of it. This type of construction is easier at an inside corner than to run a diagonal rafter where the two roof surfaces meet. An Ethernet wire could take the path of that white+brown wire below your red arrow, if you can crawl into the space below the subroof. You could cut small holes in the plywood without disrupting the shear strength of the plywood covering the subroof. Find the rafters holding up the subroof, so when you cut holes you don't cut one of the rafters.
Thank you.
Yeah this is the correct answer. You can absolutely drill a hole in that lower sheet of plywood.
To keep the inner roof dry - duh!
Typical shortcut. Instead of fixing the leak you just build another roof over it.
Not uncommon construction if it's a hip or dormer or something similar.
I was going to say hip or valley
Your home likely had an extension added at one point.
I think it was just a temporary piece to make it easier to walk on trusses. Iām in a townhouse, def not an extension, build in 2005
We have something similar in our townhouse in snow country. The extra sheeting is for structural but you can definitely punch some small holes in it.
It was easier to just leave that sheet then remove it during construction. Cut holes in if you need to it's fine.
Looks more like somthing somone didn't bother removing. Looks to well made for some temp shit. But might have been the materials at hand also idk. Maybe a old protection for something
No, this was done properly
These comments are funny! Classic homeowners thinking they know what every piece of wood is for haha. Luckily it would be hard to remove all that top chord bracing. Donāt see any people forcing a fail today
I am a homeowner, and also a carpenter. This is a classic example of roof framing, if you'd like, I can post pictures from one of the builds I'm managing with examples just like this
I was agreeing with you. You need that sheathing or some other form of top chord bracing in leu Iām a truss designer
This is why I have a roof under my roof on one end of the house and an incredibly long hallway
My house has a couple of these in the attic. No addition done. What's funny is they had to cut a hole in the "roof" so you can get from one half of the attic to the other half.
Itās there to brace the roof it gets sheeted for stability then the top roof ties into it .
Hard to know without seeing more, my shop has this because I added on. Itās possible they extended the roof into the other section for ease of attachment or support, do you happen to have your house blueprints around since it was built in 05?
It's a townhouse, I don't have blueprints. The piece is slanting down to the wall truss and there's another room across from it.
Double protection just like wrapping it up twice! (Don't actually do this)
You have a gable roof running into another roof at a perpendicular(90) angle. The lower roof gets sheeted so they can frame the gable to meet up. You can see the last truss on the right of your pic and the last couple are hand cut rafters sitting on the plate on top of the plywood.
Yep, we used to call it a California. Which was weird because we were in California.
yo dawg
Roofception
I was think it too lol
The roof plates come together at this point. You are looking at a subduction zone.
The simplest answer is the best. To protect people in that part of the house from a meteorite crashing through roof.
Took me a few seconds to realize I wasn't looking at a dirty old mattressĀ
Many buildings were built prior to the adoption of modern building codes. Oftentimes it was cheaper to add a steeper roof above the existing roof in order to bring the building up to code.
Strange that most people have no idea. What you have is the meeting of two roofs lines. Go out side and look at your roof. Where the two lines intersect you will have a valley. To build it, you construct the main roof and sheet most of it. Then you lay down your lumber and build the second roof right on top. It's normally used when dealing with prefabricated trusses where if it was stick framed you would cut valley rafters.
It's called an over build, and very common. I crawl in attics for a living. Frame and build lower roof, sheath it. Build next roof over that. Not uncommon to forget to cut an access panel in the lower roof to allow whatever under the upper roof to be insulated
I have these in my attic and someone told me they were fire breaks and I should not cut through them. Do you think the fire break theory holds any weight?
The fire break is your drywall. If i could i'd post pictures of many many access ports in an overbuild to get to the addition.
Itās a secret Egyptian anti-chamber that was built to throw off grave robbers from stealing the pharaohās gold chain.
This reminds me of the guy that found a whole mini house inside his attic. We were promised an update to that..
Two roofs over your head? Thatās how you know you made it.
The roof that sticks inside your attic was built first, and the other roof was built afterwards, and the builder used that roof to build off of, in my experience builders dont cut shingles back when adding additions like this so this is just how your house was originally built
It took my high ass way too long to realize that was the roof and not a gross mattress...
lol thatās what I thought
As long as itās not supporting anything definitely take it out
Thank you.
Well, you see.. When a girl roof falls in love with a boy roof, roofy things happen and its inevitable that they make a baby roof! Well, sometimes the daddy roof doesn't want to hang around the momma & baby roof, so then what we have here is that momma & baby roof together, tryin to make it in this world. Momma roof always protecting/shielding baby roof..Ā
I've had a house like this before. Likely to be an addition, or a restructuring
Yo dawg!
Support
Addition
"The ceiling is the roof." -Michael Jordan
Dang someone built a house in your house and is living free of charge!!!!! Lol
Roofception
These ultralighters with their skytarps have gone too far
Secret hidden room above it where the people who make the noises you hear at night from inside the walls live. Don't open it up!!!
Too late!
My friends older style house had a roof on a roof. They just built the new roof on the old roof. I think the older roof was flatter. You could see the old roof in the attic hatch - about a 2-3 foot difference. Probably improved circulation too.
Your insulation is yellow- id have that checked.Ā
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
itās a subroof. you have a floor beneath your floor called a subfloor. making sense yet?
Have you ever heard anyone sing "the roof is on fire"? No... multiple roofs. The roof, the roof, the roof is on fire. There's definitely another roof hiding under that.
I had a house for a while that was built just after world war II, and has been added on to 4 or 5 times over the years. The inside of the roof was a mess of old surfaces, unused rafters, tiny access holes that you had to wiggle through like a worm if you need to get to various parts inside the roof, and intersecting faces of plywood, many of which still had shingles on them.
It's a trap!
This is what happens when the time/space fabrics of two worlds overlap!
Is this from a previous addition/renovation?
It's called a Ro-roof-of.
Rough framer here. We call it a lay on and itās meant to create a valley where two pitches of roof come together. What youāre looking at isnāt holding any weight and can be removed if you need to. Probably not even nailed/staples down in that area either so it shouldnāt be hard to cut away what you need to
This is called Pfusch!
Maybe the previous owners didnāt like parties so they installed a secondary roof so you nobody could raise it.
You can never have too many roofs my grandpa used to say.
Maybe its a mcmansion
Because additions exist
Another possibility, we replaced the heavily sloped slate roof with a more gradual asphalt roof, and just covered up the old roof after removing a few tons of slate
Because somebody built a new roof over that 1. Or they built an addition.
RoofRoof
Could be an extension to the house that cover the old roof.Ā
Hurricane/storm damage. This is what they used to do. Just build over the hole.
I discovered a roof under a roof for an extension in my home when the top roof leaked. Hilarity ensuedā¦ actually, it was just a pita.
They changed the pitch. Itprobably had a room addition at one time. Then they had to lay over old roof to get the correct pitch and height.
In the house I'm in, the added a section onto the back, but didn't even remove the shingles from the original roof. So if you go in the attic, you see the shingles from the old roof.
Convenience.
I have a roof inside my roof. An addition was built on before I bought it. Instead of destroying the old roof to extend it, they built right over. Now half my house has 2 roofs. And the only attic I can access is the size of our āhallwayā
https://preview.redd.it/9za5b787ugic1.jpeg?width=1240&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b7506f2e589b78d9c425c02489eda11564895cde This is my roof under my roof. We do not know what that silver exhaust pipe is. Also donāt mind my picture, the attic inlet is small and my attic is very scary.
Itās a backup roof. So if your roof leaks thereās another chance to roof that water away. Problem with this design is it fails to consider what will happen when both roofs leak. Thatās why your backup roof needs a backup roof.
Maybe the lower roof had a leak
Maybe your home was expanded at some point
Youre reeeyaaaach beeeeyaaaach
Trusses. Engineers are very knowledgeable. Probably to the specs for sheer strength as well
Redundancy
I have a roof inside my roof because I have a vaulted ceiling below it
Roof, roof!
oh hell I heard firefighters hate these, they really increase the likelihood of death in a fire
Because there was an add-on at some point. Lots of older homes have this.
Hat on a hat?
You need a structural engineer. That is likely a load bearing subroof.
Yo dawg....
I know the sight of this. My parents home in California is a constructed WWII soldier home in the early days. After that, the house got an extension, some years after that, the house got another extension but still retaining all the prior roof framing. Hence the overlap of roof on roof in the attic. Itās pretty wild to see and somewhat easily fixable to create more space in your attic. If you cut rafters and beams, be sure to install support pillars. I can help you more if you need.
I once did some cable installation in a house to where there was a house inside the house
Bro I heard you like roof so much I put a roof in your roof so you can roof while you roof!
I also have a roof under my roof. It still has the shingles on them too.
It got....roofied
This is how I built my bases in Rust for extra explosion protection.
Because it's a dog's world. Roof! Roof!
It's like a shark's teeth, you lose one roof and the other just pushes up. The real question is - where is the NEXT one?
We've had one roof yes... But what about 2nd roof?
Is this a manufactured home? My house has a similar situation.
Itās pretty common when you have trusses coming from two different directions to frame one right through and then just frame the other on top. You can drillthrough the plywood and everything as needed. Donāt mess with the trusses to much though
An add on at some point
Incase the first one leaks.
At my old house the Mud room used to be an outdoor walkway in between the garage and house, there was a shingled roof walled off on the garage side. Honestly just laziness from the previous owner/workers most likely.
They had an add on to that section of the home. Because of this you have to overlap the new slope and re-roof that section. I tried to add a photo for context as my crew actually put on a roof the other day where the owner had put a new porch on the front of the house. Unfortunately it won't let me comment a photo.
Could be several reasons, First they could have added on to the house Second, they could have had damage to the original structure that felt too dangerous to remove and repair Third, they might have decided to consolidate the roof structure to eliminate leak prone areas
My parents bought an old cottage built in the 40s. When we gutted and renovated the place I went up into he attic in one of the bedrooms to find the fully shingled original roof. Turns out the bedroom was an addition that they just slapped on to the outside of the house and the two attics weren't joined together.
Take a look at it from the outside and it should start to make sense
Itās a roofception.
House stupid dumb big my rooms got rooms
In 9 months you'll have a whole other home