The other day James Quarello, Connecticut home inspector, did an excellent post about pull down attic stairs. And if you want some good additional information regarding installation of these stairs I hope you will visit his post. This post is about one of the worst installations of these stairs I have ever seen. While they are almost always installed improperly or have other serious defects that can result in collapse or maiming, this installation also resulted in serious structural damage to the roof structure. Most of these stairs are conveniently designed to fit between ceiling joists or trusses that are spaced 24 inches on center. The installer of these stairs decided that they wanted the stairs to run perpendicular to the trusses. This required that two of the trusses be cut----bottom chords as well as diagonal web members. The blue dotted lines show the trusses that have been cut. These next two pictures show the cut trusses in the attic space. It is a safe bet that the same installer also did the wiring visible at the light. Now a structural engineer will need to be called in to design proper repairs to the damaged trusses----one of the hidden costs of not knowing what one is doing, or worse---not caring. Hopefully the stairs will be abandoned in favor of the access opening visible at the right side of the first picture. These trusses are not designed for the weight of storage and using the space for storage will hopefully be abandoned as well. Truss me---this is a better approach 
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Charles Buell
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Click on the Rose to check out: AHA!---A Forum of Landmark Proportions---your Group
PS, for those of you that are new to my blog (or for some other "unexplained" reason have never noticed)all pictures and smiley-face inserts (emoticons) (when I use them) have messages that show up when you point at them with your cursor.
My WORDLESS WEDNESDAY pictures and some selected POEMS & STORIES.
I often wonder what people are thinking of when they do the things they do. Is there a mental block regarding structural supports? Do they not know? Or do they simply not give a darn? Great post, I'm going over to read James'.
Yeegods!
Charles - I actually have pull down attic stairs in my home and a HUGE attic. I have yet to refinish it yet, but plan on doing so eventually. I might have a few questions in regards to reverting it and such, but I will let you know when the time is right:) Off to check out the post by James.
Suesan, it seems to me there is just no way to figure out how these things happen.
Alan---you said it
Jason---James's post pretty much covers what you should check as far as the installation goes.
Charles, You do need to be careful which those pull down stairs. Thanks for the good info in your post.
Please remember me if you learn of anyone moving to "The OC" and I will do the same!
Michael Caruso, Broker ABR ABRM CRB CRS GREEN GRI
2007 President, Orange County Association of Realtors
(949) 753-7900
Charles, all I can say is ignorance is bliss. It isn't they don't care they don't know what to care about.
Michael, thanks
Jack---most likely you are right
A six pack, a saw and a little ambition=bad things for the house.
I remember something similar to this in an attic with trusses. It wasn't the stairway that caused the problem, but the storage itself. The homeowners had put a clothes storage closet in the attic. In order to fit the large closet into the space they had to cut those pesky truss chords...on three individual roof trusses! Can you say structural engineer.
Furnaces are another thing that trusses get cut for
Charles, of course they cared -- they cared about SAVING MONEY by not hiring a licensed contractor, and instead doing a DIY job! THANKS for sharing this useful info.
Terrible!! This is equal to Steve's lulu blog today showing how ignorant some folks are!
Regina---AHH yes:)
Barbara, no end to it is there?
I truss you Charles, it's the handy homeowner that we have to worry about. :)
Charles I'd use you if you were down this way. I do have a good guy I work with. Home inspections are worth every penny. Even on new homes.
Tad----to true
Gene, thanks----I think there are a lot of good inspectors out there.