Is it possible to retrofit a house that was constructred with trusses to a traditional stick framed roof? I'm looking at a potential house and the attic is absolutely huge but it was constructed with the good old x's and w's of a truss system. I'm sure an engineer would need to get involved in doing something like this but I thought I'd see if any texagers had tackled a project like this.

Why?

Can it be done? Yes
I don't understand why you would want to since there will still need to be trusses, but I guess you can get them to be a different shape. Most likely you would have to take off the roof and start from scratch.

Again I see no benefit to doing this.

The reason I was asking the question centers around the fact that it has a huge attic that could be converted to a space that would double the liveable area of the house. I understand that this is not a typical project and it would require a massive amount of planning. I was just wondering if anyone had ever done it and what all they had to do to accomplish it.

I would imagine in the end it would be more wise to build a guest house, but if it is possible to do it without breaking the bank it may be an alternative.

it is likely that there are trusses becasue the spans are longer than what would normally be for standard stick frame roof. you may have to add some load-bearing walls. as mentioned above i dont know if it would be worth the timne and money since you would essentially be ripping off the entire roof and structure

Would be a huge engineering effort. Would require a complete rebuild from the ceiling joists up, since the trusses use engineering and smaller pieces of wood.

I guess it might be able to be done, but I would expect it to be prohibitively expensive.

that load has to be transferred somewhere. if it's not through an engineered truss going to the outside edge of the building, then it's going to end up going directly down. this means you can open up your attic but will be closing off the floor(s) below when you put in structural walls.

Honestly, I'd say for how much you will spend doing what you proposed, you could get a much better, bigger, and much nicer addition or detached apt/garage area instead.