The Project Before the Project -part 2

category: Attic Stairs Installed in Garage
by ryan,

First lets take a look at the current state of things. Half the garage is cluttered, the other half is for my fiancee’s car. My clutter is only a small portion of what will eventually be in the garage. My half will become a workshop with things like table saw, band saw, workbench, etc.

Yard equipment and junk Unused shelves and extra bricks

Ok, so now the problem is evident. First thing first, we must choose a location for the attic ladder. We climbed into the attic, chose the best location, and poked holes through the drywall to roughly mark the 4 corners of the required rough opening.

Poke holes for rough opening Ready to cut with the RotoZip

Now the time has come to start cutting. We inspected the area in the attic to make sure there would be no surprises, such as electrical wires or pipes. The cutting began with a combination of a hand drywall saw, and the RotoZip. The RotoZip was not so great, but part of that blame falls on me. I was using a wood bit, and one that was a little worn too.

Some rough cutting complete Triming against the truss

Before the truss can be cut out and blocked off, we need to brace it in some way shape or fashion. We ran vertical braces, basically pieces of 2×4 running from the truss to a roof rafter. These were held in place with 4″ screws. These will most likely be left in permanently, and I will add a few other forms of support to help hold the load where we removed a big section of one truss.

2×4 connected to truss 2×4 connected to rafter