Expert: Ted Barnhill (Principal, Design45 LLC) - 8/14/2010

Question
My father and I are building an attahced garage onto the side of my house.  The dimensions are 27' wide by 30' deep.  That is wide as I am permitted to go.  What I am trying to do is make the upper portion available for storage, so I am looking for a way to run joists the 30' span without using a post in the lower part of the garage.  I have found that you can get floor trusses 30', but then they must be 16" deep.  Could you utilize a smaller board such as a 2x10 lapped over if you were to run a steel beam or engineered beam across the 27' width in say a couple of places to help distribute the load.  I hope I explained this enough.  Thanks

Answer
Landon,

Why not use a "room-in-attic" or "storage" roof truss?  These will provide the storage space that you desire, while easily and economically spanning the garage without interior columns.  Such a truss configuration will give you about half the floor area for storage as you have below (so, perhaps a 15'x27' storage space), and can be designed to look good with most residential rooflines.

Ted Barnhill
Design 45, LLC