Support Post For Valley Beam
Installing support posts like these
for a valley beam, isn't a bad idea. The carpenter probably had some
scrap lumber laying around and figured, what would it hurt to add some
additional support to such an important structural roof framing
component.
I would like to point something out though, if these posts are sitting
on top of the floor sheathing and there isn't any floor joist directly
underneath them, these post won't be doing much good.
Here's what's happening right now, these posts are simply cosmetic and
might make the homeowner feel better, but are providing very little
support for the roof.
Let's say for example that this roof valley was holding large amounts of
snow and ice and the weight of the roof was being transferred to these
valley support posts. The weight would be directly transferred to the
plywood sheeting.
Any additional weight on these support posts would only cause the
plywood to bow or sag and could eventually push the post through the
flooring.
Home Repair Tip: The carpenters should have laid one of the scrap pieces
of 4 x 6 on top of the wood flooring, so that it would lay over a couple
of the floor joist. Then you could have installed a valley support post
on top of the 4 x 6.
This would have transferred any load on the roof valley support beam to
the 4 x 6 that would be then transfer the additional weight to the floor
joists, instead of concentrating all of the weight on the plywood floor
sheeting.
I see things like this all the time and I'm sure that they make sense to
a lot of construction workers, but have little value to a structural
engineer.