Removing Roof Collar Ties

Removal of collar ties steve re.

Removing roof collar ties.

Collar ties are generally for the benefit of the rafters though and your rafters sound more than big enough. 2x4 collars yes i use a piece of 2x4 placed immediately under the existing ridge like a collar tie but all the way to the top on each pair of rafters. An exception occurs however even near the ridge if the bottom of the roof triangle is not secured against stretching or flattening by a ceiling joist or a low placed rafter tie. If i could just remove that i could get to probably 75 of the loft without any acrobatics.

The only time collar ties do any good is when they are specifically designed to be functional by an engineer or architect and are installed with meticulous care by the framer according to detailed drawings. The one in the middle is around 3ft height which results in an awkward limbo or high jump. Watch this video before. It ties the entire roof together.

You might actually need 2x8 rafters in such a case. There is 3 supports on the loft which i believe are either called rafter or collar ties which divide the loft into quarters.