I am going to be framing a house with 3′ eaves and i’m alittle concerned about it as i have never framed that large of an eave. I’m not sure what to do for the gable ends. should i bring the lookouts back inside the gable to the second or third rafter and if so is it O.K. to dado the top side of rafters. also how do I frame the lowest end of the gable eaves so it doesnt sag?
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Probably a stupid q, but I gotta ask . . . don't the drawings offer any advice?
And since we cannot tell from your empty profile whether snow loads are any kind of consideration (or hurricane winds for that matter), it would be foolish for any of us to offer any kind of advice.
But you may want to prepare for building large "rake ladders," the "rungs" of which will be 2x6s, maybe 2x8s, maybe larger. Your last common truss or rafter pairs might stop as far away from the end as 3 feet, 4 feet, 5 feet, who knows?
Once again. No drawings? No architect? Who dealt this mess?
Gene: good points. there are drawings, but not terribly detailed, I'm drawing up my rafter layout and may send that to an engineer. It is a fairly complicated system, with double gable dormers with a shed dormer in between them. snow loads are definately a consideration as its in northern michigan. its a 12 in 12 pitch, rafters span about 19' 6''. On one of the pitches the lookouts can only set 3' inside of the gable as the dormer starts at that point. do you have any other questions or suggestions?
Take a look at the attached pic.
The pitch shown is a 12:12, the rafters span about 15 feet, and are cut from 24-foot 2x12s. The rake ladder shown has 2x4 lookouts, a 2x4 sidescab inner lineal, and a 2x6 "sub-rake" outer. You can see how the gable framing is dropped 3.5 inches for the rake ladder to bear and have its top plane to the rafters.
In this case, we are attaching the rake ladder to the first inboard rafter, which happens to have its centerline 16 inches inboard from the gable face. The subrake outer face is 12" from gable face.
Since we are buying a few trusses for this job, the truss supplier will make up our rake ladders and ship them as prefab "components," which we will pick into place with a small crane. If we didn't need the crane for something else, we would just muscle them up with ropes.
Not shown here, but needed as part of the insulation scheme, is blocking from "rung" to "rung," along the line of the gable wall top plates. We will cut and fit 2x4 blocks and toenail them in tight, which not only close off the air holes, but act to keep the lookout rungs from rotating, something the loading tends to make them want to do.
I show how we are constrained by a dormer, but since we are only going out one foot, it is no constraint at all.
In your case, I might want 2x6 or even 2x8 lookouts, and my lookout ladder going at least 3 feet inboard, more if possible.
Keep in mind also, that venting this section of roof is well nigh impossible. We are doing 100 percent spray urethane closedcell foam, and so have no need to vent.
Edited 7/2/2006 2:44 pm ET by Gene_Davis
thanks for the response Gene and Danno. i havent considered wind yet. Gene the picture is good thats how I have done eaves in the past. what software did you use to make that drawing? Ventless roofing is something I'll be doing research on as well.
We recently did a house with a 60" overhang at top of gable that tapered to 16" at the Bottom. The truss company dopped the last two trusses 7 1/4 inch and we framed on top of the last two. I think the third truss also was beefed up to accomadate the extra members being nailed to it. The thing I added that was not on the prints was putting joist hangers on upside down where the lookouts attached to the trusses. Hope this helps.
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If I recall correctly, (and the more I think about it, the more I wonder) when we framed, we did the "ladder" that the other poster talked about, but rather than dadoing out to recive the "rungs," I think we lowered the last two rafters. Maybe someone else will respond who has done it more recently! I seem to remember on short overhangs at the gabel, we ran 2x6's flat and did use a circular saw to carve a place for them to sit and only did that to the last set of rafters. But with three feet, you are going to want something pretty substantial and strong with good connections. Even if you don't have snow, I would worry about wind, especially uplift.