Traditional Rafter Roof Construction

There are two basic methods of pitched roof construction.

Traditional rafter roof construction.

The roof rafters provide integral structural support to the roof. Ben march 1 2015. The types of rafters used in a hip roof include common jack hip and ridge beam rafters. Billy hope this helps you construction master pro calculator example building is 30 wide main roof 12 12 end cap is 8 12 1.

An example of each is shown in figure 2 1. Possibly the most satisfiying part of the roof yet. The ridge beam runs along horizontally along the top of the roof and is supported by the other rafters. Every piece is measured cut and fastened together to form the rafter.

Building with them is known as stick framing. Roofs are framed in five basic designs. Definition of common rafter. Simple roofs such as a shed or the common gable are fairly easy to construct even without plans if you understand the basics and a little geometry.

Piece by piece rafter roof construction however is still the more common construction method for many buildings. If you re framing a gable roof on a new house or building a shed or even a doghouse with a gable roof you ll need to cut a number of roof rafters. The most commonly used types of pitched roof construction are the gable the hip the intersecting and the shed or lean to. A truss roof using factory made trusses which are delivered to site complete and just erected.

I have a hip roof with a 12 12 pitch on the main side of the roof while the end is an 18 12 pitch. How do you figure the length and angles of the cuts on an uneven roof for the hip rafter. A cut roof this is the traditional method of cutting the timber on site and building up the roof using rafters ridge boards joists and purlins etc the exact details being determined by the size of roof size of timbers etc. Shed gable hip gambrel and mansard.

Before you cut your boards you ll need to measure the width of your building and calculate the exact length of each rafter. This means that each rafter is built on the job site using dimensional lumber. A common rafter runs from the roof ridge to the top of the front or rear wall plate and extend beyond the wall to provide an overhang or eaves or soffit. At the top where the rafters meet they are either angled to meet at a point or attached to a horizontal ridge beam.

Rafters are the traditional means of framing a roof. Each beam is notched at the bottom called a birdsmouth so that it rests flat on top of each wall. Shown in red in our sketch a common rafter runs at right angles to 90 to the building front and back walls as seen when looking down from above.