As for the photos, they are needed to try and determine the cause of your problem. What I personally was looking for were close-ups showing the sheathing to 2x and sheathing to sheathing joints. To see if the pieces were custom cut to fit at original build. This would impact what your fix path is.

If sheathing was custom cut, or just nailed on with gaps all over the place, then they need to come off in order to pull things back into the proper place. Otherwise as has been mentioned, things could be pulled back.

I agree and, IF the bow was in the framing when the sheathing was installed, it's logical to assume that the sheathing was installed even with the eaves and that the gaps between the ends of the sheets are tight at the top and slightly open at the bottom. If this is the case, or if the framing bowed after the sheathing was installed, attempting to straighten it with cables would be the logical thing to do before starting a major project of sheathing removal. And, you MUST have bracing in the horizontal plane to guarantee that the structure REMAINS square after correction.

King Ray: What is the slope of the roof?

That's not true.

Watching this closely...

Is it possible that while the walls are bowed, the roof and trusses are square?(sitting nicely on top of bowed walls) In that case, the wall sheathing would/should fit fine while conforming with the bow. This leaves the question: Is the overhang even, or was the soffit(if there is one) cut to conform to the bowed wall?

Just another thing to check. Measure outside from corners to the end of the truss tail, then measure from center of wall to the tail.

"Is it possible that while the walls are bowed, the roof and trusses are square?"

No. If the walls are bowed, the two planes making up the roof MUST be deformed in some manner.

If the front fascia was straight then the back would have some trusses with the tails sitting on the top plate rather than th flat portion of the truss seat. VERY, Very unlikely.

But the trussed roof is independent to the walls, like a hat on your head. If it is, in fact, sitting on bowed walls, the over hang will reflect that.

Just trying to think outside the box.

Building a stand for the plywood sheathing ,
attached to the wall that is bowed in ,
would have been more than enough
to bow the wall in , if the wall had
not been ``properly braced`
But that still doesn't explain to me ,
how or why the carpenters would have continued
running the sheathing out of square. It would have showed
very quickly had it been out of square in the first place ( IMO )


My exact thought on that too....


Wanted to say that I appreciate Abel Dog
asking and trying to cover all the bases on this topic.
And every time I thought I had something helpful to add
Abel had already covered it much better than I could have.
In my once being a Roof Stacker / Carpenter for 30 plus years
and once running a plumb and line crew for over 12 months
in a commercial building setting.
I beleive Abel Dog asked and then pointed too..
the basic need to see a better picture and was dead on ,
with his questions and replies.
All one has to do is
step back and take a closer look
at what is trying to be moved , after the roof
was sheathed and has become a` solid unit`.
Even ramming the building with a forklift wouldn't
square things up now ! And even if you could
WITHOUT... the removal
of nails / fasteners /sheathing ,
in the racking there would a loss of` integrity to the structure`
Think about what's holding the all of the trusses and
the roof together and how it's attached to the plates below it..

As to how it happened I could only speculate ,
but how to fix it now IMO ,is the roof sheathing
has to be removed, in order to straighten and square
things up now.

Would like to say in trying to cut to the chase
and in helping others , Able and Ront both may sound
a little blunt at times. But beleive me they know what
they are talking about , and just want to cut to the chase
to help as many as possible. ( IMO )

And I too would have liked to have seen a picture
of the Ridge Line from above

and a picture of the soffit line from beneath
just to see if I thought it was
bowed before or after the fact .
And how the " Cuts" looked...
Very Hard ! for me to imagine that any carpenter
would run the roof sheathing without starting out
square to the ridge and bearing wall..?
And in using a chalk line for the first course ,
why they would not STOP right there if something wasn't right. ?
My saying this , may not help to fix the problem..
I only thought to say something about how I saw the
replies of others wanting to help Ray..

I do hope You can see where
I am coming from and don't feel defensive..
As usual if I was there in person with you...
I'm sure I could help you more as could others..
It does look like you have a mess from where I'm sitting..

` It's been said
" it's easy when your plow is a pencil,
and you're a thousand miles from the corn field. ..."

Well I'm not sure about it
`` being easy if you really care``

I am sorry that I couldn't help more
But I do know a little about Roofs and
how to build them right
And IMO `something` just was not right from the start .
Love to be there to have a closer look.
And to lend you my thoughts on how to fix it now.
When push comes to shove.. remember the `integrity` and loss of..
when trying to correct what wasn't done right ! in the first place

`I can't even begin to imagine trying to fight the roof...
and straighten the walls with out first releasing and taking
the roof sheathing` element out of the fight``...

`

All due respect, you didn't explain it very clearly.

You stated that you had a 24X32 garage. That means 24 wide by 32 deep since it's proper to always give the width first. Some novices don't know this but from past posts you are not a novice.

You then say the long walls have a 5 to 6 inch bow, the long walls would be the gable ends. Then you talk about soffits and overhangs, etc so you are clearly not talking about gable ends.

I thought the underneath would show something but if you read my posts I also said those photos may not be helpful.

I said I'd like to see the first course of plywood you feel that the last course is more helpful, I couldn't disagree more.

I'm sorry if what I think would be helpful to me doesn't coincide with what you think is important.

Let me state my problem(s).

It's very hard for me to imagine framers putting fascia on truss ends that far out of straight.

It's equally hard (or even more so) to imagine a plywood sheathed truss roof getting into that condition AFTER construction.

Well it has to be one or the other and I have a lot of trouble believing EITHER condition so I was simply asking show me the problem you are talking about and it seems you won't do it.

Let me ask you if the pictures you supplied show the problem you originally stated?

Thanks Ernie. I know you have the same questions I have because anyone who has framed a bunch of roofs would say the same thing.

To those who think otherwise and have stated so. You don't lay the first course of plywood to the fascia, you lay it to a chalk line just like you don't lay the first course of flooring to the wall, you lay it to a straight line. We're talking Carpentry 101 here.

I too (as any framer would) can't imagine a carpenter after seeing that 5 or 6 inch difference stop right there and fix it. Pretty easy at this point.

And I'm glad to see you with me on it happening after, with the forklift comment or I'll add earth tremor, LOL.

So we both look stupid together with the positions:

1. No way that can happen before.
2. No way that can happen after.

edit: Rather than leave it like that, my most probable GUESS. After fascia was installed front and back the walls got moved and they installed the plywood, first course to a chalk line, no indication from the pictures of the long seams that it was not run straight. That's my most likely scenario with what I know.

Hence my request of KingRay to show us that it did happen and the extent of it and then let's go from there.