1950's Hardwood Roof Carpentry

Hi Folks, I've just been up in my roof tonight and was a bit shocked to see some of the joinery looking a little worse for wear. Its an older style house (i think '50's) and its all hardwood and no doubt things move over that period of time, but some joints have moved so much that there's a half inch gap in between some of the joints. The main one I noticed was a valley rafter/beam where it joined to a ridge and there's about a 1/2" gap between the two and it seems just the nails holding it in place.....

I'm not a builder or tradie so I don't really know whats in tension and whats in compression, and whats supporting what or how it all ties itself together but it doesn't look that great.

I had a building inspector go over it when I bought the place a couple years ago and he said it was pretty sound and normal for a house of its age. I guess I'm starting to wonder just how closely he looked at things up in the roof, or whether he was right and its completely normal for houses this age to have big gaps.

Maybe I should get up again and take a couple of pics to post on here to describe what I'm talking about better. But if anyone's got any thought or opinions on older style roof carpentry I'd love to hear them.

Thanks in advance


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