join two hip roofs?

[muldoon]

I have a semi-attached gazebo type structure right next to my garage.  The floor is attached to the garage with use of a ledger board and the deck of the gazebo runs flush to the garage.  The roofs of both builds are hip roofs and do not connect.  They are 8-12 inches away and a gutter was installed between them.  The gutter has failed, is full of leaves and debris and weather has done some damage on the T1-11 the garage is sheathed in. 

I currently use this as my bbq zone but I want to enclose this space and attempt to use it as a home office type setup. 

With the basic explanation done, here are some pictures. 

The garage wall is the brown wall you see on the right side of this pictures. 




This picture is taken looking up at the seam between both buildings.



Here is the problem.  Both hip roofs are 12 inches apart.  How would I close this in?  Can I join them, which would be a big undertaking because they do not exactly line up.  The second option I see is to make them indeed two separate structures, but that would require removing the ledger and pulling up the floor.  Not to mention how impossible it would be to actually do anything in the 18" or so between what would be the two walls. 

Here are the existing attachments




This shows the ledger and flooring and water damage. 

[PEG688]

Maybe a funky cricket could connect them?  Give us a shot / photo of the roof tops, from a couple of different angles. 

More than likely any way you attach them will be less than code approve-able, but generally a cricket can be made to tie things like this together if one if flexible with the look of the thing. 

[muldoon]

Thanks peg, I think I see what your getting at, but will post the requested photos first.  If you need to see any specific angle let me know. 

These 3 are taken from standing on the garage looking at the gazebo roof. 








a closeup of the last image, showing that the shingles from each building are about 2" away from each other and a seem picture showing the roof edges are "mostly" level. 





Taken from the roof of the house. 

[PEG688]

Taken from the roof of the house. 

  Run a ridge from right to left in this photo , then stick frame the valleys back down creating two valleys on each side . You'll have to play it by ear other then a level ridge , the rest will just be what the roof give you to work with.

  Strip back the roofing that there so you can tie back into it.


  Similar to this effect:

 



 



   



     



       


   

[muldoon]

Thanks peg, very helpful.  I think I have it in the sense of using a cricket to join them.  I'll layout my plan rather generically, and unless you think I'm on the wrong track I'll call this a huge lesson learned. 

Basically, after you mentioned cricket and I read up on them I found some links that seemed to make it clear to me.  First was this image that I think captures what I was missing mentally.  It's essentially what I need, although the details are different. 



Next I found these folks blog, http://1110wataugastreet.blogspot.com/2008/05/robby-rocked-cricket.html

they did a huge cricket and followed a slightly different method than the stick framing above, but one I am intereested in following.  They did horizontal 2x4 members to create the surface structure of the cricket between the existing valley.  Something like this

(this is one side)
 

...
Finally, I stubbed out some very rough drawings of how I would apply this to my situation. 





So basically,
I peel back the shingles

Box frame the gap between the fascia boards of the two buildings, removing anything that has been weather damaged and replacing.

Frame in the cricket with two slopes to allow water to shed using 2x4

lay 3/4" cdx over the cricket and secure. 

cover in ice/water shield on top of the roof decking plywood and then shingle over it. 

Is that a sensible plan?

[PEG688]

You could use 1/2"  ply or  7/16" OSB , although  3/4" would also work , it would just be a bit heavier to work with.  More $$ to buy

In re-guard to the single crossing "rafters" I think you'll have some trouble keeping those in plane with each other , and you'll have to do it twice going down both sides of the cricket.  If I where doing it I'd do it with 1x6 valley runs and jack rafters like the roof I tied in was done, you'd be looking at maybe 3 or 4 jacks to cut in.

But the way you show it could work, I just see more problems getting things to plane in , and as you nail them off they will want to slide down the roof , going out of plane on you. 

You'd still be cutting a long slight angle and it would have to , or should be,  cut on a angle,    so a long compound cut to make either way .

But you have the basic idea and your brief process description  is pretty complete from what I see.

G/L PEG