There have been discussions about stick framing roofs and roof trusses and since I have very little experience with trusses I have an opinion of them based on guys who post saying that they only install trusses and don’t think they can stick frame a complicated roof.
The real question is can you put a truss guy on a house that has to be stick framed? Not a simple gable or hip roof with the same pitch. I’m talking about a roof like a bastard hip roof with multiple pitches and cathedral valleys.
Let’s here it from the guys who started out using trusses and still use trusses and have never stick framed a whole roof before.
Joe Carola
Replies
Hey Joe, i can't imagine someone in the carpentry trade not being able to understand a stick built roof. Especially if they have allready worked with trusses they must know how it will come together.
But it seems everytime i expect someone to know something simple i am dissapointed by their lack of knowledge or intelligence.
"Hey Joe, i can't imagine someone in the carpentry trade not being able to understand a stick built roof. Especially if they have allready worked with trusses they must know how it will come together."This is what I'm saying. If you get a truss package, it's like pieces of a puzzle; you have to put them together. From what I've seen you get a print and the trusses are marked where they go and then you nail them up. So the only figuring is where they go.There's no figuring out how and why they go there. There's no math involved or the use of a framing square to figure. There are no rafter lengths to figure but maybe for the small hip and jacks but the rest of the math and rafters are figured out from the truss company who makes the truss.So a guy who has never stick framed a house and only installs trusses, how will he be able to stick frame a complicated roof like I've described above and even make it worth it to even frame and make any money. I'm not saying that someone can't figure it out but I don't think it will be an easy task for someone to jump onto a roof like that.Unless there's more stick framing with the truss packages other than hip and valley overhangs or the occasional hip and jacks. This is why I started this thread so that I can here from the guys who started out with trusses and just strictly frame with trusses to see what their thoughts are if they were to get a set of plans and stick frame it. This is not a competition I'm looking for to see who's smarter or more skilled than the other person, it's just to see what the truss framers thoughts are and how comfortable they would be to stick frame.Joe Carola
I think maybe you are underestimating your skills, Joe. I could muddle through stick framing a complex roof, but I'd make mistakes along the way, for sure. And a lot of what I did would be trial and error.
I think roof framing is about as complex as carpentry gets...except for maybe those curved stairs guys like Armin build. You have to ease into it, starting with something simple, then progressing to more complex roofs as your confidence and understanding grow.
No, I framed for a good while in the tracts, mostly trussed roofs, and have been a lead man stick framing a big Morman church and a few other commercial jobs, but there's no way I could jump right into stick framing a complex roof and keep a couple helpers hopping. I'd be spending a heck of a lot of time thinking, and a lot of nights reading and thinking through the next step or trying to figure out why something went wrong.
You folks who whip those roofs up while singing along with the radio or telling lies about your wilder days have a unique and valuable skill set. Don't doubt it. Remodeling Contractor with no idea where the Glass City is
Jim,It's not that I'm underestimating my skills it's just that it was mentioned in another thread about a truss guy having the same skills to stick frame a roof. He doesn't have enough experience naturally because he not cutting roofs every day.It's like all the GC's I frame for. They've all framed before small additions and small roofs but when it comes to the big stuff and complicated stuff they call me to do it. It's not that they can't figure it out because eventually they will but that takes way to much time.Especially if you had to stick frame a complexed roof like I described on a 2200 s/f add-a-level. A guy who never sticked framed and just installs trusses would never be able to that in the right amount of time and keep the house safe. That's just common sense because their not used to figuring rafters out.It's like anything else, if you do something every day it comes like second nature something the way you have doesn’t mean they lack experience.Joe Carola
I've done only a few truss roofs, most were pretty straightforward, a few were complex. We'd have a crane drop them, usually in sections (man you gotta get the right trusses in the right place 'cuz its a bear to straighten out after the crane is gone!). Then we'd walk them into place. Walking a plate is a lot easier carrying a truss with another guy holding the opposite end on the other wall, than just walking the plate alone.
I used to hate the way some guys would nail a ridge block to a truss, then stand it. Nail another ridge block to the next truss, then stand it. All the way down. All the ridge blocks were only nailed on one side. Super dangerous if you forgot, and tried to step on a ridge block! Da#m piecers!
Cut-and-stack is another thing altogether. My crew could do truss roofs, figure them out, work through the tough parts. But I was the only one crazy enough to learn to cut a stick-framed roof. I learned to like them. I like the increased attic space, I like watching it come together. Lotta pressure figuring and cutting, 'tho, especially the first few. I used to start cutting way before the house was ready, 'cuz if the crew was ready to frame when I was just starting to cut, I was in trouble!
Complex cripple-hip roofs were a tough lesson to learn. We're talking mental gymnastics. I mean I had to read books, articles, draw pages and pages of math, and geometry. Took a trig class. Did the string and sliding-t-bevel thing. Got a CM. Eventually learned to use a trig calculator, and liked it better than the CM.
To cut a complete complex roof, hip jack to ridge board, before you begin stacking, is one of my most memorable accomplishments. Unfortunately, it didn't pay well enough to keep doing what I loved, so I quit framing years ago. I did try bidding roofs only, for awhile. Made good money, and loved it. But then the guy I was working for got greedy, wanted to pay me hourly. I walked. Months later he called, and said would I come back, he was losing money with his new hourly roof guy. By then I had moved on, was into supervision of commercial projects.
I know if I had to do it again tomorrow, it'd be tough again. Its been too long.
Stairs? I could cut stairs, I even framed a circular stair once by framing a circular wall one tread at a time. But the stuff guys like Stan does - I wouldn't have a clue!
"he...never charged nothing for his preaching, and it was worth it, too" - Mark Twain
Edited 2/26/2006 3:47 am by Huck
Joe, I was scratchin' my brain trying to figure out how many people around here can do either.
I started with trusses, but cut my first roof with my carpenter book layed out on the saw horses. I managed to build that garage roof without error, but it was a challenge. Some time after that, we had roof framing in my apprenticeship training. We had to layout the entire roof, with a framing square, including the hips and jacks, and cut it all with a handsaw.
I give you that background to say that anyone that is truly interested in rough framing will know how to cut a roof. It's a major stepping stone in the development of a Carpenter Foreman and the ones that have Carpentry in their soul will learn how, even if they don't have a formal education such as I did.
The last two apprentices that I trained could cut a roof. Frank can cut one for sure, even though he didn't have a formal education. I've showed him bits and pieces, but for the most part, he just applies basic Geometry with a simple calculator and uses the framing square to mark the cuts. I don't think Ben could cut an entire roof on the horses. He could if I took the time to show him, but he never asked and I don't think I ever showed him. He certainly could fill in a hipset though and do all the layons and simple roofs.
I'd be interested to know if anyone can step off an entire roof, with only a framing square?!!! Not just an easy regular roof, but a bastard roof too! In fact, I'd like to challenge all those guys that use a CM and speed square to do a roof with only the framing square. You guys might discover some things that might actually be useful!
I'd say more than 50% of the guys that run crews here could cut an entire roof on the ground, even though we use trusses 99% of the time. The ones that can't would cut most of it on the ground, then measure for the jacks. Most of the guys here have to have a solid grasp on the geometry of the roofs because everyone puts their overhangs on before the wall is raised. If they aren't good at figuring things, they wouldn't know where to locate the overhangs!
Interesting question.
blue
Joe,
Jasen (guy modeling in all the pics :-)) says that a good framer can frame anything that comes his way without spending a lifetime figuring it out. I think I agree with him.
I think a lot of guys, certainly around my area, call themselves framers but they frame boxes with simple trussed roofs. I'm beginning to thing that "framer" is overused like "carpenter" is or a "finish" is compared to "trim" carpenter.
I don't believe the avg framer can cut a complex roof without using bevel guages and stringlines. It's not intuitive at all. It's mind bending cutting out in the street an irregular roof.
So a good framer should be able to cross back and forth without too much difficulty. Obviously when switching hats, there will be some lag or more mistakes, but it shouldn't be too bad. The house I posted pics of earlier http://pic9.picturetrail.com/VOL293/2163851/4215098/130726748.jpg was trussed with piggy back and we had to frame that highest front gable because the trusses only went up part way http://pic9.picturetrail.com/VOL293/2163851/5177572/74533622.jpg It was a really bizarre truss layout.
I know that we could have framed that roof in the same or less time sticking it as then. Since we'll do it coming up sticking the roof, I'll be able to see the numbers. Should be interesting.
"finish" is compared to "trim" carpenter."Just curious what the difference may be. I'm known as either and I toss both terms around when people ask. I suppose I ought to stick to just one.I have done a fair amount of framing and can do the basic roofs and like Jim I could probably muddle through some things. But when it comes to the complicated roofs and understanding all the steps, let alone doing layout and everything on horses with the scales and readings of a framing square (like the old guys)...I step aside and take my hat off.
I'm with you Jer, I can build the trusses in our shop, I can go set them in the field with the best of them, but sticking.... I take my hat off and standby also
Keith
I think that a true finish carpenter can do the really high end stuff. A trim guy is someone who is good at the lower end houses.
We have two guys that do our trim. One of them is definitely a finish carpenter. He can design and layout and does an outstanding job. It seems like there isn't anything he can't do when it comes to finish.
The other guy does a great job with trim, but when it gets complicated or comes to designing and layout, he doesn't have the skills yet.
We visit the Seattle street of dreams and the Portland street of dreams and the finish in those houses is finish, not just trim. I'm not sure how to describe that any better and I certainly didn't mean to offend anyone, so if I offended you, you have my apology. I do think there is a difference between "trim" and "finish". But that could just be me.
In my crazy off track world a framer uses a rulers with 1/8s, a trimer uses one with 1/16ths and a finish carpenter goes down to at least 32nds
So a good framer should be able to cross back and forth without too much difficulty. Obviously when switching hats, there will be some lag or more mistakes, but it shouldn't be too bad. The house I posted pics of earlier http://pic9.picturetrail.com/VOL293/2163851/4215098/130726748.jpg was trussed with piggy back and we had to frame that highest front gable because the trusses only went up part way http://pic9.picturetrail.com/VOL293/2163851/5177572/74533622.jpg It was a really bizarre truss layout.
I know that we could have framed that roof in the same or less time sticking it as then. Since we'll do it coming up sticking the roof, I'll be able to see the numbers. Should be interesting.
Tim, I hope you don't feel like I'm picking on you, but there ain't nothing complicated or bazarre about that roof. It looks very simple. There isn't any way I could possibly do that roof conventionally as fast as using trusses even if all the roof parts were sent to the job pre-cut.
Please correct me if I'm wrong but it looks like the truss package consists of two sets of gabled trusses. Those are installed and you have that one large reverse layon in the front. You really can't get much easier than that except to eliminate the reverse gable!
I think perhaps your aversion to using trusses is clouding your ability to objectively analyze their strengths, perhaps in the same way I feel about CMs and Speedsquares.
It might also be possible that since we do all our overhangs, and porchesand beams and fascias before we set our trusses, it facilitates the installation of the trusses in a more beneficial way. I would be tearing out my hair trying to set prebuilts over nothing.
Also, I learned a long time ago that just because the truss company sends out pre-built gables, or parts of gables, I don't have to use them. I''ve cut up hundreds of gable trusses that didn't fit into my agenda. I doubt that I would have bothered trying to retrofit that mono gable that I'm seeing over the porch. I also think I'm seeing some mono trusses that cover the porch, and they might be tossed to, depending on how I decide to frame that section. I think I'm seeing two mono trusses over that porch and sometimes it's more trouble using those two trusses and fitting all the conventional to it. It's kinda like the tail wagging the dog. We won't hesitate to cut them up and use them for backing and conventionally frame that entire section. That might eliminate that crazy midspan ridge that is making your component installation ineffective.
On the other hand, we might use those monos and eliminate that ridge and just lap the upper conventionals a couple of feet. Either way, if you had a little more experience (with trusses) or worked with someone that had more experience with trusses, I don't think you'd have your same opinion. You sound like my apprentice school instructors that thought trusses were Satan's works.
blue
You just enjoy trying to give guys who use trusses an inferiority complex, don't you Joe? ;)
Through college and for 2 years after most of my experience in residential construction was doing poured concrete foundations. I worked in Missouri and Colorado. We got to do some neat stuff in CO like true radius walls, a couple of octagons, crazy steps all over the place and some really tall walls.
I've only been steadily framing since Oct. of '04 and even that has been punctuated by periods of "trim" (as Tim would prefer I say) carpentry. I know I could stick frame a simple roof and it wouldn't take an inordinate amount of time, though not up to your standards I can guarantee.
I'm sure I could get a more complex roof done, but not without lots of JLC Online consultation from you and others.
From what I have seen here in Florida, including myself, I would say that you could not take most guys who use trusses exclusively and throw them on a stick roof and expect it to be completed in a timely manner.
But I think that any person who calls himself a framer and takes pride in what he does should be able to get the job done. And then there's only room for improvement.
from what i see here in southeasten north carolina, where they are building a ton of custom houses in an expensive coastal setting, most of the guys (i have talked to several) use a measure as you go technique which involves using at least three guys to measure from the bottom of the seat cut to the top of the long point and then using a pattern to individually cut rafters.
i hate this system, it doesnt correspond to any mathmatical formula that i know of, but it seems to work for those who don't really understand how to cut a roof (pre-fab on the ground)
also the wages here are not great so the framers can afford to throw more bodies at the problem to arrive at a sort of correct solution which i describe as trial and error by the fitting of each piece. i just hate it. one contractor who i showed how to cut a roof on the ground, including the layout for locating all the jacks on the hips before sending them up told me that he felt i was putting him down when all i was trying to do was convince him and show him a better way. just no interest
Moose,
I've been thinking more about my statement. I think the best way for me to say it is, that guys who only frame crackerbox houses would have a more difficult time switching to cut up complex custom homes. But the custom guys would be able to frame a crackerbox.
Same way with trim. Some guys are really good and fast with the simpler stuff and it would be harder for them to go and do the complex finish stuff.
I hope my comments didn't sound rude. I did not intend them that way.
I didn't take your comments to be rude at all. I was just kidding around. The distinction you made is not one that I had ever made. Usually I considered trimmer and finisher to be synonyms, but I like your definitions and think they make sense.
We frame mainly crackerboxes, but we do some trays, octagons, and trays with doglegs and whatnot.
Any carpenter with a good head on his shoulders could make the transition to whatever environment he finds himself in pretty easily.
Particularly when you have a quality-minded individual, many aspects of construction are variations on a theme. Certainly there are tricks and shortcuts for everything and the more you do something the better you get. But a good carpenter can do pretty well at most anything!
I agree with Tim.From reading posts here I am exposed to methods used in different parts of the country. High production framing of typical gable roofs and even cathedral ceiling effects are easily achieved at top speed using trusses. I've built simple boxes with trusses and have looked at using scissors trusses for load bearing and cathedral effects. I guess if I was building a twenty house subdivision, in the interest of time and money, trusses might be the best route. But it is an economy of scale; in other words, you have to spend a lot to be able to save a lot.But that being said, in order to graduate from the college I went to for building construction, we were required to understand the mathematics (trig) used in figuring hip roofs and more complicated cut ins,etc. And might I add we were not allowed to use construction calcs. Knowing the calculations can save a lot of fumbling around on the jobsite. I also learned how to lay out and build any type of stair the same way, although the actual skill-set required on the job is still acquired by the DO and not just the THINK.Most all the framing we have done or propose involves stick framing, including the roof. The savings accrued by using trusses works out about the same stick vs. trusses. So, we stick build. And I wouldn't think of hiring a framer or framing sub that didn't know how to figure a rafter cut. The trusses we did use were mostly on one story construction and didn't require a crane, we just pulled them up and nailed them in place. But with higher construction, the cost of a crane would be a part of the picture. We make sure we sheath every four feet, that is placing the trusses two feet on center. Most trusses are not engineered to allow for storage or attic space, so the those trade-offs also must be considered.
As for what a 'trim carpenter' and a 'finish carpenter' are I guess the designation probably comes from high production operations where individuals are assigned to a very narrow scope of tasks. The true definition of 'finish' implies all aspects of trim and cabinets and interior work, basically the work applied at the finish of the project.Good finish carpentry is an art just like good framing is. To get crown moulding cut and applied properly, windows installed with trim, doors installed and hardware installed correctly is learned. You'd think it easy, but I have seen the results of those who think it easy to do and learn. I think finish carpentry also applies to the art of understanding design and use of trim, finishes and such and what works best when. Also, the skillset of any finish carpenter can be proven when doing historic restoration -- in my opinion.
"Also, the skillset of any finish carpenter can be proven when doing historic restoration -- in my opinion."
That's true to some degree, but there is quite a distinction between new trim, which a finish carpenter can be quite competent at, and real historic restoration. Historic restoration involves knowing and understanding the context whereby a house or building was built. What was going on at the time, what materials were used and can you get those materials today, the techniques of that day and are there people who can replicate them. What certain motifs meant, what is the significance area you're in, and what is the history behind all of the above. What carpenter today knows how to take a piece of timber and turn it into a glowing piece of furniture with just hand tools? Many do, but most don't...it's obsolete. Who carries handsaws in their truck? Do you know how to sharpen and set one? To make the jump to historic restoration is indeed a big one, but I can see your point in that a good finish carpenter must have a great deal of patience with what they are doing, and that is the epitome of any kind of historic work and restoration.
The only other thing requiring more patience and knowledge than restoration in my book is historic conservation when you have to preserve absolutely everything you start out with. Usually that involves specialists.
We do carry handsaws in our truck and use them and not just for restoration work.As posted in another thread, there is a difference between restoration and preservation. Historic restoration can involve anything from keeping with the form and intent to a complete preservation project where every bit of the work is done as would have been originally. Unless you work for Sturbridge Village or some other such project, a typical homeonwer isn't interested in that depth.That being said, yes I know how to sharpen and set a handsaw, know how to use and sharpen a moulding plane (various sizes), know what a jackplane is and how to use it, and a spoke shave on and on.Oftentimes, I have found that such simple handtools do have an application in the field, once you are aware of their uses, then that is information you have to apply when the issue may arise.We use a handsaw to cut the rake ends on roof trim among many other uses because a fine tooth saw will give you a nice clean, accurate cut, for example.It is a shame indeed that the oral history of the trade has not been passed down in the old tradition of apprentice/journeyman, but in reality, who can when production is the rule that feeds us?
"It is a shame indeed that the oral history of the trade has not been passed down in the old tradition of apprentice/journeyman, but in reality, who can when production is the rule that feeds us?"
Very well said, and thank you for your response. I suppose if anything it's good to know that there are still those out there who take a keen interest in the purity of the trades and their historic context.
Thanks and I wish I had time to do more, but I have to eat too.
Thanks to all who responded.It seems that there's some guys who stick frame a little when installing trusses and some guys who do more trusses. I've been framing for 22 years and I'm still learning but it took a lot of roofs to cut to get where I am. I wouldn't say that a guy who has only installed trusses his whole life can't figure out a complexed roof like I described above but there's no way that he would be able to do one at a reasonable time and make money on it compared to a guy who stick frames every day. That's just common sense because he's not figuring the math behind it or the use of the framing square behind it or whatever way one would figure rafters.He's given pieces of a puzzle that's been calculated already at the truss shop and what he has to do is piece it together except for the occasional hip or jacks or overhangs.Joe Carola
I have to disagree with you on trusses, everything we build is always cut up roofs, and yes I can stick frame them that's how I started out. But when it comes to a complex roof even thoe you use trusses dose not mean it is just a game of putting it were the layout shows. Every roof we do ends up with usual 4 or 5 days over framing, and with the over framing involved if you did not know how to stick build a complex roof you would not be able to tie a roof together. The reason I use trusses, It saves me time, the less time I have to spend on the roof the better. I did a roof on a 15000 sqft custom a few years ago spent 4 weeks framing and sheeting the bastard. If I had it to do all over again, trusses any day.
Edited 2/28/2006 10:51 pm ET by byoung0454
"I have to disagree with you on trusses, everything we build is always cut up roofs, and yes I can stick frame them that's how I started out. But when it comes to a complex roof even thoe you use trusses dose not mean it is just a game of putting it were the layout shows. Every roof we do ends up with usual 4 or 5 days over framing, and with the over framing involved if you did not know how to stick build a complex roof you would not be able to tie a roof together."This is the stuff I was looking for. You can do this because you said you started out stick framing and you also said you stick frame 4-5 days over framing.My last post was from some of the responses I was getting. Like I've said before I don't use trusses so I can't argue them. I was just trying to find out from guys who never started out stick framing and started out with trusses. From your post it's obvious to me that there is a lot of stick framing involved with trusses since you say you stick frame 4-5 days."I did a roof on a 15000 sqft custom a few years ago spent 4 weeks framing and sheeting the bastard. If I had it to do all over again, trusses any day."When you say that, do you mean that you stick framed that whole roof?Joe Carola
When you say that, do you mean that you stick framed that whole roof?Yes we did and like i said it was a bastard.
I'll second that.
If it can be trussed, I prefer trusses too.
Roof framing calcs are just solid geometry, and I go through enough of it when prepping to order a truss package, and checking the submittals.
I would rather leave the cutting to the guys in the truss plants with the CNC saws.
And you are right about overframing. There is always enough of it to be done to keep your roof cutting skills intact.
Guys that say that stickframed roofs are somehow "superior" to those that are done with trusses, are in fact just trumpeting their own feelings of being superior.
Here is a pic of the fun part of a frame we did last year. A marriage of trusses and sticks.
The porch roof has an eyebrow sweep, and its exterior soffit tracks the eyebrow. Inside, however, the porch ceiling is a single-radius vault with two flat flanking sides, the radius of the vault matching the primary radius.
The photo here is from the prototype house in Vermont, not from the one we built. Our color scheme is different. But you can see how the large porch, without any visible beams in its ceiling, nor center posts, might be a real challenge to roof without the use of trusses. It is the two-ply girder truss that supports most everything.
View Image
"Guys that say that stickframed roofs are somehow "superior" to those that are done with trusses, are in fact just trumpeting their own feelings of being superior."Who said that?I started this thread because I don't use trusses and wanted answeres from guys who started out with trusses and just use trusses and never stick frame roofs but I guess I'm learning now that there's a lot of stick framing involved because a truss roof is never sent complete. You have to go back and stick frame. So what percent of a trussed roof is sent and what percent has to be stick framed?To me from the other posters on complicated roofs you have to do more stick framing. Does that cause any problems when your mixing stick framing with trusses and the different species of wood that the trusses are made from?Joe Carola
Here is another example of a marriage we made of sticks and trusses. This one included sections of timberframed roof, also.
A simple-looking roof from the outside, it has three different vaulted areas underneath, one under the dormer, and the others under the master suite end.
Could have been stickframed, but hey, we like the labor savings trusses offer.
On this roof, we scabbed onto the truss heels sawn lumber rafter tails of KD spruce 2x8, each detailed with a radius end and 2" hole, to give it the Craftsman look the design called for.
Here is a pic of another stick-and-truss marriage we did.
Everything up high is trussed, all else is sticked. The garage out at the far end was trussed, and just the first couple trusses are shown. The trusses create ceiling vaults in three upstairs rooms . . . one a hipped tray, one a complete vaulted hip with ridge, and the other a simple pitched vault.
The real beauty of a trussed package shines when you have a lot of vaulted ceiling shapes to do, and the trusses can be made to handle all that. A fantastic labor-saver.
We have never had any kind of problem marrying stickframed sections to trussed sections.
My remark about the feeling of superiority of guys who only stickframe, and have no experience with trusses, was not directed at you.
Mr Carola,
I've used trusses since I started framing houses and it's not as easy as some may think, your house framing+someone elses roof=pain in the azz sometimes. I posted pictures a few days ago in the photo gallery of a house we just finished last week, me and one other guy spent five days overframing that house we stood all the walls up in one day and five on the roof are you kidding me?
We stick framed all the hips, the bumpout hips and the octagon off the back as well as all the valleys. The front of the house where the garage and house meet in a valley was all stick framed. Nearly half of the front of that house is overframed. On hips you have to lay down 2x4 purlins flat from the girder truss to the peak.
Trusses come on a semi trailer and are dumped off the truck at 60 mph by the looks of them sometimes, usually they are over 300' from the house. The truss diagram says start layout here and guess what that set of trusses is burried on the bottom of a 8' tall pile. And when the garage meets the house on any shared wall the tie-ins are usually a nightmare. So bad I've got two restraining orders on two different truss salesmen and I have never got that throttled up before ever.
Anyway bottom line is with a hand framed roof you are the master of your fate, with trusses you have to hope the guy with the computer on the other end knows what he's doing. If he doesn't carry a milk jug full of Tylenol and wonder what the hell you did to deserve all of this. I've got tons of examples of engineering gone wild dealing with trusses.
"I've used trusses since I started framing houses and it's not as easy as some may think, your house framing+someone elses roof=pain in the azz sometimes. I posted pictures a few days ago in the photo gallery of a house we just finished last week, me and one other guy spent five days overframing that house we stood all the walls up in one day and five on the roof are you kidding me?"I guess I'll ask the same question I think I asked Blue or Stinger. Why is it that you have to spend 5 days overframing a trussed roof? Why cant the truss companies send out the whole roof package?Have you ever had to spend 12 hours to figure out a truss package like Blue said he had to do on one house?Joe Carola
Yes I have spent countless hours trying to figure out what went where and where the walls are to be stood up to make sure any and all bearing points in that particular truss are caught.
As for overframing I like doing it to some extent, it allows me to adjust as needed to make sure roofs plane in right rafters can be trimmed as necessary to make minor adjustments but if you take a saw anywhere near a truss other than cutting tails it alters the "design of the truss" and is not covered by the manufacturers warrany, as if they would actually honor one anyway. Valley trusses have never worked out for me so I hand frame them on every job.
Hips are a major downfall of the truss packages I get, I always end up framing those to a stringline from ridge to plate. Takes more time than it should I think maybe I'm wrong. Bastard hips are a bear on the overhead diagrams of the truss plan it show the ridge offset of the corner which is normal but they never tell me how much the offset actually is so out comes the straightedges and stringlines and the milk jug of Tylenol.
Hips are a major downfall of the truss packages I get, I always end up framing those to a stringline from ridge to plate. Takes more time than it should I think maybe I'm wrong. Bastard hips are a bear on the overhead diagrams of the truss plan it show the ridge offset of the corner which is normal but they never tell me how much the offset actually is so out comes the straightedges and stringlines and the milk jug of Tylenol.
So I can't help but wonder if valley trusses don't work well for you, and hip (bastard or regular) don't work well for you, then what is the great big advantage to using them for you?
I get some flack every once in awhile here because I've made the statement that trusses don't work well for our company. That was long before I started framing. They still don't work that well for us.
If I had a roof that I was going to have to stick frame the valleys and the hips, then why in Hades would I have someone fabricate off site a half dozon gable trusses in the middle of the house and then start stick framing everything else? Once I'm in a stick framing mode, it's quicker for me to cut those gables and stick them.
The thing is for me, and my crew we are very fast at stick framing. We gang cut, we have 2 forklifts w/2 platforms and all the tools to go with stick framing. We stick nearly every house we frame, we framed 13 homes last year and sided 3. That was just our 4 man crew. The smallest we framed was 2000sq and the biggest was just shy of 4000sq. We are NEVER on a roof for longer than 5 days, most are 3 days including sheathing and this roof http://pic9.picturetrail.com/VOL293/2163851/7273486/96465285.jpg
http://pic9.picturetrail.com/VOL293/2163851/7273486/96465240.jpg we were on for under 10 days. I think it was 9, but I forgot. Two of our guys missed a couple of days when we were sheathing due to a death in the family, but it was under 10 days. Around here for the houses we build, with the tools we have, and equipment, we are very fast, never has another framing crew with trusses on the same street or development (only mention this because we could compare progress)beat us on the roof. Time after time the subs come over and ask how we got so fast. I don't think we are that fast, but I do think that since most guys don't stick frame they think its rocket science. It's not, as Blue pointed out, just practice.
I guess what I keep coming back to, is that many truss proponents complain about the time it takes to fudge them into working and planing and the amount of framing that still needs to be done. Apples to apples, maybe they aren't stacked up to be such a panacea unless the framing crew isn't very proficient stick framing, then they are.
My crew has a lot of work to do to get really really proficient at stick framing, but if a crew is very proficient, I don't think there are many roofs (barring long long spans and commercial and really upper end huge homes) where the savings is that great at the end of the day.
Lately I've considered switching over to stick framing on hipped roofs due to the amount of time involved in figuring out someone elses roof plan. We framed 18 houses last year and are scheduled to frame 30-35 this year, with a four man crew and no skytraks or forklifts I've got to shave off some time. None of our houses were as big as yours.
I guess the only thing holding me back from switching over is me I started out with trusses and have used trusses ever since with small amounts of stickframing on each job, just haven't experienced the other side of the fence yet on a large scale. The octagon roof I built like the one in your picture took one day all on its own for me.
One other reason is that you can truss alot of jobs cheaper than materials on a stick framing job around here only one yard in town carries 2x12's and 2x10's over 16' and still have to order anything over 20' which doesn't come cheap.
By the way what kind of tools are using for your gang cutting, my grandfathers 10" circular saw hasn't come in yet from Hawaii when it does I'll order the matching swing table for it. Any others you might suggest, cause I'll be doing at least two total stick builds that I know of this year and maybe the one I started yesterday. One truss company says they can't do it with trusses and another company says 50% can be done with trusses.
Tools, now there is a subject that we can spend a lot of time on :-)
I'll list the tools we have and then the ones we'd have to have.
First off, we've got a Stihl MS 361 chainsaw w/chiseltooth chain. The cuts will rival a circ saw. We mate that to a Big Foot headcutter that we modified for a larger base. Here's a couple of pics. The orginal http://pic9.picturetrail.com/VOL293/2163851/4419028/63898251.jpg and the modified http://pic9.picturetrail.com/VOL293/2163851/6440753/91453848.jpg http://pic9.picturetrail.com/VOL293/2163851/6440753/89601176.jpg
Also for making cuts greater than 45° we have a 10 1/4" Big Foot saw w/swingtable http://pic9.picturetrail.com/VOL293/2163851/6440753/82815157.jpg and two 14" Big Foot BigBoy saws, one is a Bosch and one is a Milwaukee. Big Boy is on the right http://pic9.picturetrail.com/VOL293/2163851/6440753/82815105.jpg
Milwaukee http://pic9.picturetrail.com/VOL293/2163851/4419028/63898260.jpg
http://pic9.picturetrail.com/VOL293/2163851/4419028/57033167.jpg
Of course we have have an assortment of 7 1/4 saws. Here is a pic I took a year and a half ago http://forums.jlconline.com/photos/albums/userpics/10074/normal_Picture-017.jpg
Now if something happened and I had to replace the tools, the most necessary tools are a good chainsaw, Headcutter, and 10" saw w/swingtable. You could cut 99% of your roofs with those saws. If you do any beamwork, then you might want a 14" saw. It all depends.
I have a whole pile of pics that I could send you if you decide you want to start. Also here is the JLC article that really explains it well http://www.jlconline.com/cgi-bin/jlconline.storefront/440661a300029b6627177f000001053a/Product/View/0409gang
I'd be interested in that list, when my saw shows up I'll have the 10 1/4" with the swing table and my regular Bosch 7 1/4 wormdrive, with the Milwaukee wormdrive as a backup. Is the 7 1/4 swing table good for anything? With the 10" it doesn't seem like you would need the 7 1/4 swing table other than the weight of the saw itself.
Not so sure on using a chainsaw yet, I'll cut the headcut one at a time for now. The Big Boy looks like a tank man, but something I'm interested in when I win the lottery.
My feeling is that a 7 1/4" saw w/swingtable doesn't give you that big a seatcut. I think it'll max out at around 2 1/2". For us, I use that as a minimum seatcut because our rafters overhang the plates and the outside of the sheathing, so a 3" seatcut tives me 2 1/2" of bearing. With the 10 1/4" Big Foot you can get up to a 3 3/4" seatcut I think.
The chainsaw? I'm telling you it's pretty slick. With a sharp chain and a guide, you can make really nice cuts.
14"
So I can't help but wonder if valley trusses don't work well for you, and hip (bastard or regular) don't work well for you, then what is the great big advantage to using them for you?
I guess what I keep coming back to, is that many truss proponents complain about the time it takes to fudge them into working and planing and the amount of framing that still needs to be done. Apples to apples, maybe they aren't stacked up to be such a panacea unless the framing crew isn't very proficient stick framing, then they are.
My crew has a lot of work to do to get really really proficient at stick framing, but if a crew is very proficient, I don't think there are many roofs (barring long long spans and commercial and really upper end huge homes) where the savings is that great at the end of the day.
First Tim, lets dismiss the notion that stick framing is almost equal in time to truss setting. That's not even in the realm of possibility. I like to tell the story of when I was a young hustling strong Carpenter Foreman. The boss stopped in and checked on us and left the jobsite at 3:00. The trusses were all staged at the double wide front door. Our four man crew began settting the trusses. Since we were working on a two story, two guys shoved the 5/12 pitched trusses up to the guy standing on the uppper floor in the foyer. He pushed them up to me, receiving them up on the walls. I just dragged and stacked them.
After dragging those 19 trusses up top in a big stack, the guys jumped up and we all started walking and setting them, tacking the tops with a lacer board and one nailing the trusses to the plates. As soon as the last truss was standing, two guys dropped back and finished nailing (hand nailing) the trusses to the plates (total of three nails in each truss). The other two guys put the lacer down the middle on the bottom chord. At precisely 3:25, we began to roll up, just like we did every day. At precisely 3:30, we were all wrapped up and in our trucks saying our goodbyes, just like we did every day.
The boss called up later and asked how far we got setting the trusses. I told him without thinking anything about it that we got them all set by the end of the day. In those days, we were forbidden to work any overtime and that day was no different. The boss was mildly shocked and exclaimed that I must pushed the guys pretty hard. Not really, that's how we did it all the time.
So, if I'm hearing you right, you could cut and stack a simple two story box, approximately 31' span and 39 wide, including all the ceiling joist in 25 minutes with your four man crew and no equipment?
Lets just lay that speed claim to rest, shall we?
Now, lets tackle the real issues.
The valley truss packages can be done very effective if they are shipped on every job. It would take a few packages to work out the wrinkles on the best way to set them. Since they rarely show up, most guys just go about setting them using the wrong techniques.
The hip packages are a different story. They are shipped on every job but again if the crew uses the wrong techniques, or are sloppy in their setting, they will run into problems. That same thing could/would be said for stick framers. If the hipset is set properly, it still needs to be finished with some uptop framing. Again, if you go about this using the wrong techniques, it can be a pain. For most of our applications it's pretty cut and dried and it's a routine set. A lot of guys will use strings to align their hips, but its possible to eyeball them in if they are routine. I am a 50/50 guy. The guys complaining about having to tweak the hip package would be the same guys complaining about having to tweak a stick framed hip. There's nothing inherrently different between the two. If you create a curved hip with stick framing, it will look just as bad as if you create a curved hip with truss framing. It's all about techniques.
The real advantage is of course flexibility in floor spans. Ive got a 2700 sf ranch plan on my desk that has an open floor plan. The foyer is connected to the great room with no beams or walls. It has a soaring cathedral ceiling with the peak running parallel to the front and back wall. The span is 28 feet. The adjoining rooms have spans of 38'. The garage has a span of 25'. The entire house deck was framed with 2x10's and have no internal bearing points. That offers total flexibility in moving interior partitions. It doesn't take a major re-draw for Mrs Smith to increase the size of her master bath or bedroom by a couple feet or more.
Most of the trusses on that plan has multiple designer ceiling framing on each truss. There are studios, pans, cathedrals and steps. Their are even some flat ceilings! There are different wall heights combined with the different desingner ceilings. To be blunt...it's a mess! But trusses makes it very fast and easy to set the roof. It's fairly routine to swing two major trusses with differnt wall heights, multiple designer ceiling, and stepped down tops in with little effort.
One last mistatement to correct. I'm not extraordinary in any way. I can drive by 100 crews in my neck of the woods that can do everything I do. I may save a few minutes and save a little bit more lumber but just about every crew leader can set the trusses and cut a bastard hip. Like I said, I never worked for a foreman that couldn't.
blue
"That same thing could/would be said for stick framers. If the hipset is set properly, it still needs to be finished with some uptop framing. Again, if you go about this using the wrong techniques, it can be a pain."Blue,Can you explain that a little more as far as as stick framed hip? I don't understand the problem you would have with a stick framed hip. You set it and string a line down the center of it and nail a few braces or use the jacks as the brace and then nail the jacks to it and it's straight. What uptop framing is involved?I've never set hip trusses before so when setting them wouldn't you have to use a line down the center so that they are set right straight and plain it right? I don't knmow.Joe Carola
Joe, I obviously didn't speak clearly in that paragraph.
I'm trying to say that in either case, if I don't use the proper procedures, I'll be cussin' and moanin'.
When we set the hip sets, on the sides, there are usually several stepped up hip trusses behind it. The truss company builds them so that they are 11/2" low and we lay a framework on top of it to plane the roof to the peak. There are numerous methods of doing this and some are faster and easier, but also more problematic if done wrong. The old standby is to use a string.
The same can be said for setting the hip rafters and the jacks. If you send up a rookie and he sets the hip in the wrong place, then nails all the jacks without sighting that hip straight, someone will be cussin' and moanin' as they fix it.
Tim was implying that only truss guys complain about their lousy materials but I've heard the cussin' and seen many bad stick jobs. I've done more than my share of stupd stuff myself!
blue
In case anyone is wondering what Blue is talking about when he says he has his hips dropped an 1 ½”, I’m posting a few pictures.
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Sect1 shows a dropped hip truss. You will notice that the flat part of the top chord is lower than it should be, or “dropped” so you can lay 2x purlins on top of it.
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Sect2 shows the purlins.
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Sect3 shows what we call a “layflat” truss. Instead of purlins, the truss company makes a truss that will fit onto the hip. In this example, you may notice that there are 2 layflats. This is because it would be too tall for us to build in one piece. Also, the name of this truss varies from truss company to truss company.
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Sect4 shows a full hipset with a layflat.
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The red trusses are girders, the pink are jacks, the brown are hip trusses, and the green are the purlins or layflats (except for a few jacks)
Edited 3/3/2006 8:02 am ET by MiCrazy
Those are some pretty good pictures, but in the first three you cut off the trusses. I don't think you can do that without an engineer's approval."he...never charged nothing for his preaching, and it was worth it, too" - Mark Twain
Nice pics. Where did they come from?
I had a good wife once. Then she went home to her husband.
I drew them.
I always model the trussed roof frame I'm buying in 3D, and make adjustments to the model per the truss designer's recommendations and his plant's practices and capabilities.
By the time he gets me a drawing submittal package, I have a model that, while not showing all the truss webbing exactly as it will be, has all the trusses placed exactly per his layout, and my model has everything in precise roof planes.
I can then use it to check all his truss geometry, looking at the elevation detail he gives me for each truss. I usually catch and correct a few errors.
Here is a pic of one of the hipsets in our last trussed job. It is from my model, and shows what I always have called the "sleeper" truss laying atop the hip set.
I did not have the plant "horn" the trusses as you show, but everything planes out anyhow. The outer edge of the sleeper is the hip junction of the two planes.
What was the purpose of your model? Are you a truss designer?
Stinger, you do a lot more before the truss package gets there than I do. I start my research after the trusses are dropped. I pull out the paperwork and compare what is ordered to what I get. I specifically am interested in the spans and the heels because we set all our overhangs (closed) before we raise the walls. If the trusses are 1" larger or have a heel that is 1/2" higher, we need to know!
Those horns also can be a pain. Frank cuts them off. I tweak them to receive the "layflat".
blue
"Those horns also can be a pain. Frank cuts them off. I tweak them to receive the "layflat"."
I've started making mine a half inch undersized to try to keep the guys in the field from having to mess with them. The steeper the roof pitch, the more they have to be shortened.
Q: Why do so many women fake orgasm?
A: Because so many men fake foreplay.
Boss,We could also be testing how strong a trussed roof vs a stick framed roof is after a fire. This is somethinmg that I can tell you a trussed roof fails quicker than a stick framed roof from what I've seen from doing fire jobs. This has been discussed here before also.Joe Carola
Trusses and fires are a hot issue. (pun intended)I did a thread on it a few years back, and have recently done some talks for fire departments on the subject. I don't think it's a big concern in residential construction.
Q: Why do men die before their wives?
A: They want to.
Boss....Thanks for the previous info . Recommending local business's is a tremendous asset and to mention the shortfalls of our companies only goes to elevate your integrity and causes me to be able to say "I know a guy that will give you straight answers"
"Trusses and fires are a hot issue"..........I have been using non-vented soffit panels above and to each side of window and door openings on the logical premise that during fire the vented panels act as a chimney and cause truss failure because of extreme heat at the truss fastners. Not my orginal idea but in my opinion is a better way, do you have any thoughts on this?
Several years ago you panelized a house for us and we used webbed floor truss's . the house caught fire due to an over sized wood burner. After the fire I inspeceted what was left and through my own ignorance found that the fire traveled through the webs until it got to some catilivered PT deck joists. Fire blocking along the sides of the joists would have at least slowed the spread of fire. Yes I still feel guilty and responsible for the extensive damage . I can only remind my self of the definition of a redneck...."someone that spends more money on his truck than on his education".
Nails,Trusses that are burnt from a fire are worse then a stick built house Period. I can't see how anyone can argue that at all. Once a truss is burnt the whole truss fails ceiling and all. The whole truss has to be replaced. Ther might be a small fire sometimes wher there's not that much damge on the bottom of the truss and I'm sure that can be fixed. But for a big fire, there's no fixing them.A fire that starts in a ceiling on a stick framed house as opposed to a trussed house is no difference because the whole attic is wide open. The difference is what the damage is. When a fire starts in a ceiling it burns the ceiling joists. On a stick framed house sometimes all we have to do is change the ceiling joist because the rafters aren't damaged.Sometimes the fire burns the rafters and not the ceiling joist so when demoing and fixing you can walk on the ceiling joists. If the top of the trusses burn and the upright pieces burn and not the ceiling part of the truss, you still have to replace the truss.When the fire starts in the ceiling on a trussed house the ceiling burns which is the truss, so now the whole truss will collapse or has to be replaced and is dangerous fro a fireman to walk on the top of the truss because it will cave in. On a stick framed house the rafter isn't affected and therefore will not cave in. If it's not affected.There's no argument there with a truss roof that has a section that is burned.Floor trusses are the worst in a fire with everything open. How can anyone argue that. Every fire job I've done with floor trusses they all had to come outand the fire cause more damage to the rooms above.With solid 2x's this doesn't happen as fast. they have to burn through the solid 1-1/2" of would. Same goes for I-joists but there not as bad as floor trusses but that little 1/2 piece of plywood they are made from burns a lot faster than 1-1/2" of solid wood.I'm just telling you this from what I've seen from all the fire jobs that I do. There's many ways fires start and different places fires start but the worst ones are when the burn a truss roof, floor trusses and I-joists from what I've seen.One fire job I was on was started in the chimney in the attic. The bricks and mortar was falling apart and the homeowner heard cracking noises above there head in the bedroom and then the flames came through and burned down the whole roof and most of the second floor.To me the floor trusses are the worst and there designed for convenience for mechanicals without even a though about fires. Don't we care about fire proofing a house.For me they should raise the height of a basement 1'if it doesn't affect the height requirement so that all mechanical can go under a floor joist and not use floor trusses and if people want to finish the basement they can frame the ceiling down and sheetrock it. They won't loose any head room."After the fire I inspected what was left and through my own ignorance found that the fire traveled through the webs until it got to some catilivered PT deck joists. Fire blocking along the sides of the joists would have at least slowed the spread of fire."If they were boxed in with 3/4" plywood on both sides that would've stopped some of it but no one is going to do that. Like I said fires burn different and there's some cases no matter what you have, 2x, I-joists or floor trusses, nothing will stop it.Joe Carola
Edited 3/4/2006 9:03 am ET by Framer
Are your layons the same as "layovers".
To me the floor trusses are the worst and there designed for convenience for mechanicals without even a though about fires. Don't we care about fire proofing a house.
No we dont care about fireproofing houses. If we did, we would use all noncombustible materials like they do in commercial applications.
We do slow down the fires though by separating the plenum created with open webs every 500 sf by code around here.
The mechanicals rarely go through the trusses in our areas even though they have chases built into them. Since the steel beam is already dropped, the mechanicals are installed next to them.
Building your ceiling a foot lower in a basement would create a very dangerous plenum that is a fire hazard. It would have to be draftstopped every 500sf around here, just like the trusses.
When you think about it, most basements are wide open anyways and it will all burn!
I wouldn't argue that trusses work better in a fire. I have no doubt that dimension lumber is superior, but when the design calls for longer spans, choices have to be made.
blue
"No we dont care about fireproofing houses. If we did, we would use all noncombustible materials like they do in commercial applications."I'm talking about just with floor trusses. What good are they?"The mechanicals rarely go through the trusses in our areas even though they have chases built into them. Since the steel beam is already dropped, the mechanicals are installed next to them."Again, what good are they if you don't run the mechanicals through them? An I-joist any house that I've ever framed can span the same distance as a floor truss maybe not but I've never once framed any house or addition with a floor truss before. The only time was when I replaced them on fire jobs.So for house I see no use for them especially from where you’re from they put the mechanicals underneath them. Even if there good for a plumber and electrician there still a fire hazard more so than a 2x built house as far as I'm concerned and would never use them in my own house."Building your ceiling a foot lower in a basement would create a very dangerous plenum that is a fire hazard. It would have to be draftstopped every 500sf around here, just like the trusses."Then they can box out the duct work only and sheetrock the bottom of the joists if they can but most cases you can't. Everyone around here puts suspended ceilings in with fire rated grids and fire rated ceiling tiles for that but I've never seen draft stops every 500 s/f before. I just framed out a 4000s/f basement and the builder used a company called Cicago Metallic. The came in a started there grid down 15" from the bottom of the I-joists and the grids were 1-1/2" set at 16" cnters and will be sheatrocked with 5/8" fire rated rock. Have you ever seen this stuff before?http://www.chicagometallic.com/product_frameset.asp?menuitem=73&rowcount=2&product=®ion=1&company=29&division=28&viewby=noneJoe Carola
Joe, I've never seen that particular product in use, but it looks like some fairly standard commercial grade ceiling products. Most are well designed and easy to use.
The question of firestopping every 500' must be a local issue. I've had to create these 500' sections in several communities but not in all of them. I guess each fire marshall dictates in each community.
I don't know much about floor trusses-I avoid them at all costs. I think perhaps they are chosen for loading values.
blue
Why do you avoid floor trusses? Are they difficult to work with or do you think they're an inferior product? I've never worked with them, that's why I ask. If they're a hassle I'd like to know in case I've ever got to price a job with them. We're talking floor trusses and not I-joists, right? I hear the two terms get mixed up sometimes, that's why I clarify.View Image
Floor trusse are harder to set than I joists and I think we agree that 2x 10 are the easiest.
Floor trusses are also a big jigsaw puzzle. Make the wrong move and you are out a ton of hours. They are inflexible in that if you have to tweak your frame 1/2", the trusses might not work.
The hangering of them gets ridiculous sometimes.
They are heavy.
They cut hands and fingers and the trip to the hospital for stiches eats up profits.
I charge more for truss jobs. A lot more.
Cantilevers are crazy stupid.
I once took four hours on a simple second story sidewall brick cantilever. I normally do them with 2x10's in five minutes, but the lookout truss jacks and hangers and weird hardware to double up a joist was insane. I was spitting mad by the time I got it done. The worst part was that it caused a bulge on the siding and I couldn't get it out. My big persuader did nothing.
Beware of floor trusses. Don't let the lumber salesman convince you that they save time.
blue
also... a lot of floor trusses require more depth than an i-joist or 2x framing.. which means more stair risers, which means bigger stairwellsMike Smith Rhode Island : Design / Build / Repair / Restore
"...a lot of floor trusses require more depth than an i-joist or 2x framing...."
I'm curious why you would say that.
Floor trusses will work with roughly the same depths as I-joists and 2X lumber with any given span.
Floor trusses only need to be deeper if you got to longer clear spans that can't be done with 2X lumber or stock I-joists.
Maybe I'm getting off track a bit here, but - I can't understand why people get so worked up about an extra 4" or so of depth in a floor system. It only adds maybe one riser?
Think about how many threads there are on BT about removing posts in basements. If floor trusses were used with longer clear spans, there would be fewer beams and posts.
Maybe I'm missing something, but a little extra depth doesn't seem like a big deal to me.
A government that is big enough to give you all you want is big enough to take it all away. [Barry Goldwater]
It only adds maybe one riser
Spoken like a true office guy LOL!
Boss, you are right. Adding a riser usually isn't that big of a deal. The last time we added one in a 3500 sf house, it caused the arch to the study to get smaller. The builder told us to shift the stairs backwards to maintain that arch. We built the stairs. The homeowner complained about the arch leading to the great room being too low.
After about 4 hours of heming and hawing and indecisiveness, we finally agreed on a change/solution. That only took me about two hours to complete.
So, do you think I gained, or lost on those 6 hours of "adding" one little riser?
I lost.
It adds only one little riser is like saying, "I just want to add ten feet to the span of the living room"...and use the same floor joists.
blue
"Boss, you are right. Adding a riser usually isn't that big of a deal."
Exactly. So why do people make such a big deal out of it?
The one situation you mentioned is an unusual case, and is probablty due at least in part to poor planning. People tend to want really short stairwells. (In my experience)
If the stairs are drawn to allow for the actual depth of the floor system, it shouldn't be a problem.
A fool is quick tempered; a wise man stays cool when insulted. [Proverbs 12:16]
If the stairs are drawn to allow for the actual depth of the floor system, it shouldn't be a problem.
Boss, that's usually the problem. The plans get generated thinking about "normal' joist. The client wants to beef up the floor or widen the span. The riser gets added.
90% of the time, it causes problems. Most drawings don't leave space for an extra foot of run. Then the agonizing decision is dropped on the field guys and production ceases for a round of design and engineering.
blue
Stairs always seem to be a problem for some reason. I once got a plan (hand drawn on graph paper) that had a 4' X 6' hole drawn for the stairwell. He said he wanted a nice, wide stairway, which was why he went with 4' wide instead of 3' or 42". And someone told him that a 6' long hole was enough. Last night I was in a 2 YO house that was near the top end for price/size around here. When they took me down to the basement my head just barely cleared on the way down. Anyone over 6' tall would have needed to duck. Don't know why that is, but stairs seldom seem to be planned out well.
My Wife walks with me when I take the garbage out. That way she can tell her friends we go out once a week.
well, boss.. i do a lot of design work involving stairs..
making them conform to code, including head clearance, is difficult under the new codes.. so .. one extra riser is a big deal
in a large custom home with unlimited space.. fine.. of course those homes are usually going to have 9' or 10' ceilings .. so the extra depth complicates those layouts too
in additon to complying with code , i also like my stairs to be easy to climb & descend.. which means you have to exceed code.
finding space for generous runs, modest risers, and uncramped landing areas is very difficult.. and extra depth in the floor system only makes that job more difficult
i also find that most floor truss systems are under spec'd , and they tend to a lot of trampoline effect... more so than I-joists & dimension lumber
in commercial work floor trusses tend to shine.. but in residential work they tend to suck
Mike Smith Rhode Island : Design / Build / Repair / Restore
Never heard of using non-vented soffits over windows and doors. But it's an interesting idea. I have no idea how much difference it would make.I'd rather stay out of the rest of the truss/fire issue stuff. I've said what I think, and don't wish to get in a big battle over it again.
When I was in grade school I painted just like Picasso. The teacher gave me an F.
Most everywhere in the state of Florida, trussed roof structures predominate in residential construction.
They are designed and built to handle the large deadloads of clay tile or concrete tile roofing, and detailed out with connectors and sheathing fastening to withstand the kind of storms that are named after women.
I think that speaks well for this type of roof structure.
Hi Boss.....My idle mind was wondering if you knew of anyone that ever did a cost break down of material difference between truss's and stick framed roofs, nothing hi-tech just a common ballpark idea.
From the "how come" dept, if most agree that truss's are better why don't we see more panelized wall packages or have you noticed an increased use ?
"My idle mind was wondering if you knew of anyone that ever did a cost break down of material difference between truss's and stick framed roofs"
I've never seen anything like that done. It would be interesting to try, though.
The WTCA did something sort of like that once called "Framing the American Dream". They built 2 houses side by side in the parking lot at the national home builders show.
One house was 100% stick framed. The other one used floor trusses, panelized walls, and roof trusses.
there's a link to the brochure in PFD format here. It gives the component and lumber costs, man hours of labor, etc.
Unfortunately they've locked it so ya can't print it out. But there are those here on BT who can unlock it if they choose to...
"From the "how come" dept, if most agree that truss's are better why don't we see more panelized wall packages or have you noticed an increased use ?"
Some builders love wall panels, others don't. It seems to me that once a builder starts using them they don't generally go back. The convenience and speed are hard to beat.
I don't push wall panels simply because the company I work for does a crappy job on them. Our prices are too high, we give poor service, and the quality is bad. Why would anyone want that?
If you want wall panels, go to that place in Virden. Ask for Lance and tell him what I said. He's a great guy and does an excellent job with walls.
A liberal is a socialist who won’t admit it. [Warren Robbins]
Good pics, good explanation MiCrazy.
We get those "layflats" occasionally, depending on which truss company services the job. We have about ten truss plants in our general vicinity so we usually don't know which style of trusses we are going to encounter.
We also have built our own "layflats" ( I like that term!). It would seem like a big advantage to have a layflat, but my personal choice is to just frame it up top with sticks.
I don't usually start building that section of the roof until I've sheathed the lower hipsets and sidejacks. I do it that way because I like to have places to stand, work, and store materials. I don't like dangling in midair amongst only sticks. This system is not without danger though, because if I've mistakenly set the lower section wrong, it could compound into insurmountable problems at the peak.
Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
blue
So, if I'm hearing you right, you could cut and stack a simple two story box, approximately 31' span and 39 wide, including all the ceiling joist in 25 minutes with your four man crew and no equipment?
Lets just lay that speed claim to rest, shall we?
I never said such a thing. When did I say that?
I'm sick of you putting your words in my mouth. They taste funny :-) I never said anything, and I've never compared my crew to yours, or anyone elses outside of those I've framed along side of or near. So stop resorting to playground tactics.
It's clear to me that you don't try to understand where I'm coming from or what is lost in this form of communication. I take a great deal of time and effort to try and imagine your circumstances so I can understand the part of communication that is lost with the written word.
Edited 3/2/2006 10:39 pm ET by Timuhler
Tim sorry for misunderstanding you. I made that reply in response to this post.
I guess what I keep coming back to, is that many truss proponents complain about the time it takes to fudge them into working and planing and the amount of framing that still needs to be done. Apples to apples, maybe they aren't stacked up to be such a panacea unless the framing crew isn't very proficient stick framing, then they are.
The bulk of the discussion was focused on complex roofs. My post then showed how fast simple trusses could be set. No matter how you compare, setting trusses is much faster than stick framing them. Even when you add the tweaking time for trusses, theres still no comparison, the trusses will be significantly faster every time.
blue
"Why cant the truss companies send out the whole roof package?"
There are several reasons. Probably as many reasons as there are truss plants.
One reason is pricing. Setting up and making just ONE of any kind of truss tends to be expensive. And valley sets are like that - Just one of everything. So building a valley set is often more expensive than just stick framing it.
Production capacity is another. It takes a lot of time in the plant to set up just one of anything. And since truss plants typically have a backlog of work, it makes sense to build only what's necessary and get it out to the framer. If we pre-fab more of their work they're only gonna need the next set of trusses sooner.
Shipping is another reason. Valley sets don't stack particularly well on the truck.
Complexity is the last reason I can think of off the top of my head. Many valleys are simple ones. But others have a bunch of roof lines coming together in one area.
The more complex the valley, the greater the chances that it won't fit together well in the field. Everything is straight and square in the computer. Not so in real life. With stick framed valleys you can adjust things easily to fit. Not so with pre-fab valleys.
Does that answer the questionwell enough?
Better to light a candle than to light an explosive.
So what percent of a trussed roof is sent and what percent has to be stick framed?
Normally only about 5% is stick framed but I've seen some roofs that left 25% to be stick framed. The last house I framed we had four corners of the lower roof that needed rafters: There were three rooms about 10 x10 with hips and one 8 x 25 with a shed and hip. Trusses wouldn't work on those rooms because there were floor trusses interfering with the roof framing. The had acutally shipped trusses on three of those areas that we cut up and used for overhang blocking.
We didn't have to pay for the trusses because our plans had indicated that we didn't want trusses for those areas. We knew that we didn't want trusses for those areas becasue we knew that the total height would be severly limited and we wanted some flexibility.
blue
You guys know a 1000 times more than I ,but I have noticed trusses use much higher graded lumber than stick,like structural select. Trusses are also computer engineered to take advantage of the the loads placed on the roof. When the rain hits the snow I 'll take an engineered system.
"You guys know a 1000 times more than I ,but I have noticed trusses use much higher graded lumber than stick,like structural select. Trusses are also computer engineered to take advantage of the the loads placed on the roof. When the rain hits the snow I 'll take an engineered system."We use all doug fir for framing.I don't know what they use for trusses. Are you saying that trusses are stronger and will hold up better than a stick framed roof? If so I've never heard that before and I wouldn't believe that at all.Joe Carola
We use all doug fir for framing.I don't know what they use for trusses. Are you saying that trusses are stronger and will hold up better than a stick framed roof? If so I've never heard that before and I wouldn't believe that at all.
I'll say trusses are stronger, if they are engineered to be stronger. I've seen plenty of sagging conventionally framed roofs but have never seen a trussed one sagging.
blue
"Are you saying that trusses are stronger and will hold up better than a stick framed roof? If so I've never heard that before and I wouldn't believe that at all."
I'm not sure I should address this for fear of stirring up a hornet's nest. But what the hell, it's been a fairly quiet winter here on BT. (-:
I kinda hate to generalize on trusses vs. stick framing because there are so many variables. Some truss companies are committed to quality, and others suck at it. Some stick builders do a good job, and there are plenty of DIYs and hack who have no clue what they're doing. So either stick building or trusses can go either way.
But - In general - I don't think that there's any doubt that trusses are stronger.
There is a TREMENDOUS amount of engineering behind trusses. Every last detail is questioned. There are lots of safety factors in both the lumber and the plates.
With stick framing there's very little thought put into it. You just look at a span chart and nail some boards together. No one calcs the forces involved and specifies the amount of nails required, etc.
With structural roof framing, it's all about connections. It doesn't matter how big your rafters are if they aren't connected well.
So that's my opinion. Take it for what it's worth.
Back off! You're standing on my aura.
I don't think one type roof is necessarilly STRONGER than the other, for the reasons you mentioned. But I think it's fair to say that trusses are as strong, while conserving lumber.
There's no way a person could stick frame a roof using the same size lumber trusses use, get the same strength, while keeping the open spaces stick framing provides. Tipi, Tipi, Tipi!
Jim, your making good points but I'm still of the opinion that trusses are much stronger.
I've stick framed enough roofs to remember feeling a lot of bounce in a lot of them. I've never experienced any bounce in any truss job.
There is a neighborhood near us (Warrren) that was framed post war. It is all stickframed. It is not uncommon to see 6" dips in the roofs all over town. I had to fit roof to one on an addition and I had to throw out my tape and square and just carve everything it by eye. It was a nightmare.
blue
"I kinda hate to generalize on trusses vs. stick framing because there are so many variables." "But - In general - I don't think that there's any doubt that trusses are stronger."Boss,When someone says stronger. What does that mean? How and what is it compared to vs a stick framed roof. Are we saying for example that we have two houses that are the exact same house with one having a stick framed roof with 2x8 rafters and 2x4 collar ties with 2x8 ceiling joists and vs a truss roof and both have a 5/12 pitch. Are we saying that if there was 2' of snow on both roofs that the stick framed roof would sag in some way as opposed to a trussed roof that wouldn't sag?How about a Cathedral ceiling with 2x12 rafters sitting on a structural beam with no collar ties with a 6/12 pitch and the truss roof would have a 6/12 pitch on the outside with a 3/12 pitch on the inside. Would that truss roof be stronger as far as snow loads?Let's try another scenario from which I've experienced with a stick framed roof. I've seen tress fall on roofs and just blow out the rafters only and not touch the ceiling joists.If a tree fell on a trussed roof, I would venture to say that the whole truss would brake also causing the ceiling to break also. I think that would be a fair test to make. The tree could land where a vertical or angle 2x4 hits the top chord of the truss, or the tree could land in between hitting just the 2x4.There are many variables like you said but I think with different test that one might fail in one test where the other wouldn’t.Have you ever seen a study on this trussed roofs vs stick framed roofs?Like simulating a snow load on both roofs and see what the deflection is.Joe Carola
"When someone says stronger. What does that mean?"
I mean stronger overall - Like they'll carry more weight before you start having problems.
" I've seen tress fall on roofs and just blow out the rafters only and not touch the ceiling joists."
I haven't seen a roof yeat that was designed to handle a tree falling on it.
"Have you ever seen a study on this trussed roofs vs stick framed roofs?"
Yup. But it was so long ago that I don't remember a lot of details. (Over 15 years) And the company who did it is no longer in business.
Basically it had to do with what I mentioned - The connections. The rafters have to be connected to the ceiling joists well enough to resist the forces generated by loads on the roof.
There's one example that I can think of which illustrates this. This happened near here a few years back.
A homeowner hired a roofer to put a new roof on her house. The roofer stripped the old roof and stocked bundles of new shingles along the ridge.
The connection between the rafters and ceiling joists failed, and the roof collapsed.
I know that's an isolated case, and maybe the house was just poorly built. But it illustrates my point that connections are important, and often overlooked in stick framing.
May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house. [George Carlin]
Maybe we can get xxxPaulxxx to drop a tree on his house to test the theories.
blue
LOLHe'd have to build a house using only screws before he'd take you up on that.We do all trussed roofs in my area. I'm curious, what is your process for setting your king hip truss and your jacks to get them to plane well?We've messed with a couple things, including pulling layout on the king, but we go back to laying a flat 2x4 right above the heels and getting the jacks to plane that way. ie, we lay a 2x4 on edge from the last face common to the king and make sure the 1,3,5 jacks are all planing. (Assuming it's equal pitches) Rarely do the jacks land on layout.And I've never gotten to use one of those layons. Only Block-a-rama for us.Ever seen guys run sheathing vertically once they get to the hip trusses?
Bluemoose, you made me laugh when you said Block-o-rama and asked about laying the sheets vertically. That brought back memories....memories so far removed that I can now laugh about that.
I was still working with my mentor when we first encounterd a trussed hipset. We were dumbfounded, as could be expected. The step downs weren't dropped so the boss had us run the sheating vertical. That's a freaking nightmare unless you took the time to plane every truss in and brace them all straight, starting at each hip corner. Of course we didn't do that and the results were a wavy sheathing installation.
The next job, the boss decided that we had better do block o rama. That's how we did it from then on.
A few months after that and I was on my own. I think it was some time in the mid to late 80's that I got a hold of my first hip package as my own contractor. I did the block o rama on the first one and on the second decided that there must be a better way. On the next one, I created a wide span an overlayed the stepped down trusses with a framework. That was a "daring" move, but it worked out...except for that wide span. I'm sure the drywall guys didn't appreciate that when they did their ceilings. Fortunatly soon after that, the truss companies started dropping their stepdowns and I never had to deal with that again.
As for your question: I'm not sure what the term King Hip truss refers to, so my answer might not be a good one for your question.
Remember our overhangs are already completed and this speeds up the truss setting job and assures a quality set without much effor. Here's why: the fascia line is the governing factor instead of the heel line or instead of the wall line.
Sooooo. When we set our trusses, the bottom are always properly aligned with the edge of the fascia. That's the true baseline. The exterior hip corner at the bottom is now our starting point for the hip. The hipset girder is automatically a second point. We string a line from the bottom corner through that girder point and that is the true line of the hip. All trusses are pulled into that line and plane.
Note: I normally work the bottom section complete with plywood and all hip framing before I start the "layflat" section.
Hope that answers it.
blue
By king, I meant the truss that passes over the outside corner of the building, creating the hip.Thanks for the explanation. I think we do the same thing geting the hipset to plane. Only we use a straightedge instead of a string.It sounds like you don't have to trim your truss tails either.
Bluemoose, we don't use king truss that passes over the corner of the building. We install a 2x6 hip rafter and the side jacks fasten to it.
We do have to cut our tails. Typically (12" overhangs), we cut them all level and pull the fascia up tite to fasten it.
"Maybe we can get xxxPaulxxx to drop a tree on his house to test the theories."If that happened he'd be screwed..........;-)Joe Carola
Trusses are totally engineered for the situation. Guess you have to take the classes in statics and dynamics to appreciate trusses. Are they always going to be stronger, no , because stick building has to be built "hell for stout"using basic parameters. I think the framing that I have seen you do is beautiful. I couldnt do that in a million years. As a volunteer firefighter I would rather be in a stick framed building cuzz when one of those chords in tension lets go..like a "bowstring truss"..Its coming down. In 1996 we had a lot of snow,then rain. I moved my car out of the old farm shed hours before it collapsed. Buildings were down everywhere. My truss house held up fine except for some cracked 6x headers. My sisters stick framed hip roof broke and I did work on a coulpe of others. The insurance guys didnt question a think..they were so busy they just went about writing checks as fast as they could
Edited 3/3/2006 3:38 pm ET by atrident
"...I have noticed trusses use much higher graded lumber than stick, like structural select."
The grade that a truss plant uses varies a great deal. Some use #2 SYP for the chords and #3 SYP for the webs as their mimimum. Some use SPF #2 and better. I know of one place that uses all #1 SYP in the chords.
Generally select Structural is too expensive to use unless required by design. (Large spans, scissor trusses, etc.)
I'm sure the grades and species of stick framing vary a great deal from one region to another also.
Men like to barbecue. Men will cook if danger is involved.
Guys that say that stickframed roofs are somehow "superior" to those that are done with trusses, are in fact just trumpeting their own feelings of being superior.
I haven't read any farther down that the post this comment was made.
If I have made comments that sounded "superior" then I apologize for that. That was not my intention. I try and take a backseat to many discussions, whether here on the net, or in person because I don't want to be one of those people who jumps in without the knowledge or experience necessary to understand what is being discussed. Not that I still don't do that sometimes :-)
I don't know how we could define "superior" anyway. Each has their strengths and weaknesses.
"...I don't want to be one of those people who jumps in without the knowledge or experience necessary to understand what is being discussed..."
Tim - just wanted to say that I've never had that opinion of your posts. Other places I've read you saying you didn't mean to sound condescending. You don't - at least to me.
Tipi, Tipi, Tipi!
He's given pieces of a puzzle that's been calculated already at the truss shop and what he has to do is piece it together except for the occasional hip or jacks or overhangs.
Joe, you just don't know how much you've oversimplified the process with that statement.
I once spent 12 hours understanding a truss package before I could even start the mudsill on a house. You act like everthing is automatic which is 180 degrees from the truth. The truth is that you better know how to reverse engineer the truss package in terms of all the layouts, elevation drops and interpret complex drawings if you are doing a complex house. You don't have the luxury of adjusting your heels a bit if you miscalculate a wall height.
On that nightmare house that I spent twelve hours disecting the truss package, I also spent a very considerable time setting and completing the roof. I think I had to order 250 (I repress nightmares like those) studs after the house was standing which were all installed somewhere up there in 12/12 land.
Lets just agree that each system poses a different set of problems. All of it is basic geometry, the same kind my kids learned in 7th and 8th grade. So, anyone that has passed 8th grade posseses the knowledge to calculate a bastard hip roof if they are inclined to do so. When I explained the basic geometry to calculate bastard hips to Frank, he needed about two minutes, maybe less to do the calcs. His skills were developed in a machine shop working to the thousandths and doing the geometry on metal parts.
Bastard hips aren't exactly rocket science. Most average framers make a bigger deal out of them because they haven't spent more than five minutes trying to understand them before they give up. That's how much time I spent trying to learn High School Chemistry before I gave up and I don't know anything about that either.
blue
"I once spent 12 hours understanding a truss package before I could even start the mudsill on a house. You act like everthing is automatic which is 180 degrees from the truth. The truth is that you better know how to reverse engineer the truss package in terms of all the layouts, elevation drops and interpret complex drawings if you are doing a complex house. You don't have the luxury of adjusting your heels a bit if you miscalculate a wall height."Blue,Are you saying that each truss isn't marked where they go? I thought they would come stacked in sections that go in each part of the house, like maybe marked bedroom #1 or master bedroom or living room, something like that, yes,no?If it takes 12 hours to understand a truss package then that means there's a lot more involved with them. With your post and the other post there is a lot of stick framing involved. Why is it that there is so much stick framing involved and the truss companies can't send out the whole roof so you don't have to spend 4-5 days stick framing? Is it because it's cheaper to stick frame the overlays?Joe Carola
Are you saying that each truss isn't marked where they go? I thought they would come stacked in sections that go in each part of the house, like maybe marked bedroom #1 or master bedroom or living room, something like that, yes,no?
If it takes 12 hours to understand a truss package then that means there's a lot more involved with them. With your post and the other post there is a lot of stick framing involved. Why is it that there is so much stick framing involved and the truss companies can't send out the whole roof so you don't have to spend 4-5 days stick framing? Is it because it's cheaper to stick frame the overlays?
Joe, on that particular house, the truss package was extremely complicated as evidenced by the time it took me to mentally sort it all out. I don't remember all the details but suffice to say that it involved girders going into girders carrying hipsets and walls of varying heights and layons and holes that needed conventional and studios and high heels (6'ish), etc, etc, etc.
After setting those trusses, I vividly remember scratching my head and logically trying to figure out the best way to proceed. I remember needing to do extensive wall framing that had to sit over some trusses and had layons that layed onto layons. I remember standing on the left front corner and mentally working myself around the house, both up and down and finally declared that there was exactly ONE spot that was a logical place to start. I literally had to start laying the sheathing in that one spot, then proceed to do the layons in only one order. There really wasn't any way that two guys could do this roof without standing on top of one another or by working out of order that would create a much more difficult situation.
The point is that a complicated five pitched roof with multiple plate heights and multiple heels is difficult whether we are doing conventional or trusses. If a roof is simple, it will be simple if it is conventionally framed or trussed.
The reason that most truss systems need additional framing is because the situations are too expensive for trusses in those areas and the framing is either too complicated or too simple to bother with trusses. It's basically a money issue. For instance, around here, I've only had trusses supplied for a reverse gable once in thirty years.
blue
Joe,
I framed for some time with only trusses. Probably about six years. The first time I actually stick framed a roof was at "The Hills of Bedminster" after moving to New Jersey.
With a plain front to back gable roof you may have a simple overframe on the front and that will require you to understand the basics of how a roof works but nothing in depth.
On the other hand, when you get into the more complicated stuff it's just like someone else here said. You have to fully understand the roof in order to frame what goes under it.
My first year out of Highschool I learned how to layout the more complicated truss roofs. A process that is often more complicated than just pulling 16" centers in two directions from one corner.
Like I've said elsewhere, I can frame just about anything but it's doubtful that I could explain most of it. I much prefer to Stick Frame. I enjoy it. I view setting trusses as just nailing some stuff in place. Even though I know there can be some very complicated layout with trusses.
I do however think that trusses indicate where the state of the trade is going. Look at Toll Brothers and Pulte and Hovanian. If you lower the skill needed to produce something, you lower the quality of who does it. The days when 75% of all housing is delivered on a truck and set with a crane by guys who don't speak any english or have even one clue of how to build a house from a pile of lumber are not far off. How long ater that will Framers be as valued as convienience store clerks?
"If you lower the skill needed to produce something, you lower the quality of who does it."
I always bristle a little when guys say that anyone using trusses is somehow not as skilled or smart as a stick framer. I think that notion is ridiculous.
To me, the skills are just different. Just like the skills for trim work are different than the skills for framing a wall.
Both are done by a carpenter. But a good trim guy may not be a good framer, and a good framer may not be a good trim guy. That doesn't mean either of them are less of a carpenter or less skilled.
The need for skills changes with time. And we all have to change with it.
How many of you know how to lay out a log cabin? Would a carpenter from 150 years ago who was an expert at log cabins know how to stick frame a house today?
Obviously the answer is "no".
What's happened to the vast amount of people who used to be expert builders of horse drawn carriages? Or the manufacturers of vacuum tubes for TVs? Or people who know how to construct an outhouse properly?
The need for these professions have come and gone. And it's possible the need for stick framers may come and go also.
Men would like monogamy better if it sounded less like monotony.
Boss,
I think this discussion should become more specific.
Obviously those truss guys that have posted have shown that their homes are more cuttup. The biggest percentage of the market is not the high end cut up stuff that requires a complex truss package and 4 days of overframing. It is the lowerend easy to build easy to truss starter home market. I think we'd all agree with that.
Pulte, DR Horton, Toll brothers have divisions where they build high end homes, I've toured them, BUT there aren't many areas to customize and you are still stuck with basically a stock plan. That isn't a true custom home. The majority of their volume is tract style housing.
So in fact, using trusses on those types of homes, that are simple and easy to panelize will save labor and require much less experience. That's why it's easy to get into. There is nothing wrong with that. But those guys (whether they speak English or not) will have a tough time switching from that to what Joe described.
We attended the International Builders Show in Vegas 2 years ago and toured a higher end Pulte division. It was really cool to see. The framers were all Hispanic and everything was shipped to the sites. Those guys worked hard and seemed to do a very good job. The circular stairways were framed in a shop and delivered. Basically the title "framer" becomes less framing and more assembling. For instance the guys in your truss plant on avg couldn't come out and frame a house, they assemble the trusses which have been designed. That is what much of the framing in the country is like today.
It's those guys that I think Joe is talking about. Obviously a guy who successfully runs 10,000sq houses could crossover, but those guys are rare in the pool of framers in the country, or so called framers.
It sounds to me like you're comparing beginner carpenters working at setting trusses on simple homes with trusses to experienced carpenters that are stick framing complex houses. But what if you looked at it in reverse - compare experienced carpenters working at setting trusses on complex homes with trusses to beginner carpenters that are stick framing simple houses. I think the skills for stick framing and using trusses are different - Junt like trim work and framing are different. But I don't think either one is a less skilled job if you compare apples to apples.
Men have an easier time buying bathing suits. Women have two types, depressing and more depressing.
Men have two types, nerdy and not nerdy.
It sounds to me like you're comparing beginner carpenters working at setting trusses on simple homes with trusses to experienced carpenters that are stick framing complex houses.
What I'm comparing is the average framer in this country. The majority aren't lead guys and might never be. Since most of the home building going on in this country is in the starter home class, the guys who typically frame those homes will have a more difficult time dealing with the complexity that Joe described.
At the same time, they would have difficulty with the complex truss designs for those more complex frames. But they would learn to set those complex trusses faster than they could learn the stickframing, because they already know how to set trusses and have techniques built around that.
Does that make sense? I think that what has been pointed out in this thread, is that the more complex the truss package, the more stickframing they involve and thus the more experience in stick framing those framers have. So their overlap between a complex truss package and a complex stick framed roof would be greater. After thinking about it more, that makes perfect sense what Blue and the others were saying.
However, I think most would agree that those guys, Blue and the others, are a step above the average framer in this country.
I get used to communicating with guys here and at JLC who really are probably in the top tier of their profession and that is why they come to these forums. The great majority of guys don't do that or read the magazines or books. Its those guys who will have a harder time crossing back and forth.
I think that Joe's point is valid. When you spend a lot of time learning to stick build, and you learn to cut all the pieces, you learn why they go together the way they do and you know all the cuts etc, it'll be easier to cross over to trusses than the reverse. The learning curve is different and the bag of tricks will be different to a degree.
There is one fact I don't think we can escape. Trusses are designed and fabricated off site. Stick building is figured and cut onsite. So framers don't need to know all the minutia of geometry to set trusses. I've never talked to someone who didn't set trusses without a stringline sometime somewhere and spacing is ignored to make them work just right. And the overframing required for the majority of homes framed in this country can be taught to a 16 or 17 year old. I know, because that was when I was taught to overframe. Yes there are odd angle overframed valleys, but most of the time, a stringline and some quick trial and error (or eye balled like Blue does) will solve that.
So for a roof to be properly stick framed, the framer should know how to figure the angles not hack it together (which is how many go together). That takes longer to learn than it takes to learn to set trusses. I think that is Joe's point.
I hope I don't sound like I'm talking down to you or anyone else. It's these discussions that really make me critically think about the issue. I'm always better for it.
"Since most of the home building going on in this country is in the starter home class..."
Maybe in your area. Just exactly the opposite is true around here. There are no new starter homes.
"Trusses are designed and fabricated off site. Stick building is figured and cut onsite. So framers don't need to know all the minutia of geometry to set trusses."
Maybe not - But that's not at all the point that I was trying to get across.
Take what Blue was saying about "reverse engineering trusses", for instance. He's learned to try to figure out what he's getting BEFORE framing walls and such. That's a skill that stick framers don't have to master.
They have to be able to communicate to a truss company effectively and tell 'em what they want. That's not as simple as asking for a bunch of 2X10s.
They have to know when to ask questions. And they have to have a good BS detector if they get answers that they weren't expecting or don't think are right.
That's why I say it's a whole different skill set. A lot of the work has to be done AHEAD of time, and isn't apparent when you see them nailing the things up on a house.
If you drink don't park - Accidents cause people.
"Since most of the home building going on in this country is in the starter home class..."
Maybe in your area. Just exactly the opposite is true around here. There are no new starter homes.
Reread what you quoted. I said COUNTRY, no here, not where you are. As a whole, most homes are starter homes and when you combine that with second homes, it's the great majority.
Take what Blue was saying about "reverse engineering trusses", for instance. He's learned to try to figure out what he's getting BEFORE framing walls and such. That's a skill that stick framers don't have to master.
They have to be able to communicate to a truss company effectively and tell 'em what they want. That's not as simple as asking for a bunch of 2X10s.
Again, we are talking the average framer. Blue has developed skills to deal with the truss companies more effectively. Do you think the average framer does this? Of course not. Remember, if the majority of homes built in this country are starter homes, then they are simpler and lower cost by necessity. Those guys that frame at that level don't have to be as detailed and so they aren't. And yes, it is easier than "asking for a bucnh of 2x10's" because most builders don't deviate from their blueprint, so the framer can rely on the I-joist company, the lumberyard and the truss company to deliver what he needs. A bunch of 2x10s require someone to crunch the numbers, albeit simple in many cases, to make sure the stock is long enough.
That's why I say it's a whole different skill set. A lot of the work has to be done AHEAD of time, and isn't apparent when you see them nailing the things up on a house.
But not for most homes being framed in this country.
I'm curious where you're insistence comes from that most new homes are starter homes. That doesn't seem to be consistent with what I've seen anywhere that I've worked. (St. Louis to Chicago)On the rest of it, I guess we're just going to have to agree to disagree. Doesn't look like I'm gonna change your mind, and you aren't gonna change mine.
Love is like the sun: when it's there, you just want to wallow in its glow, and when it's gone, you just want to sleep and drink hot chocolate.
Builder magazine, Custom Home magazine, etc. If you go to JLC and look at the bottom of the page, there are links to other Hanely Wood publised magazines. You can find the info there.
About changing minds? That never happens 100%, but you didn't really address what my main point was.
I am in a tiny market. Virtually no market at all. But I can say from what I see that the huge majority of new homes here are not starter homes.
But I'll bet that is true just about everywhere. The majority of new homes built are not being bought by first time home buyers, but by second and third timers moving up, plus retirees buying that "last" home. That is what my regular reads of the Wall Street Journal are telling me.
And who says "starter" homes have simple roofs? The days of one ridge, gabled or hipped at either end, are gone forever.
Maybe all those roofs up in the Pacific NW are getting sticked and not trussed is because you stick-only-framers up there aren't charging enough! ;-)
You know "starter" market can mean different things in different regions. Some of the "starter" homes I've seen advertised around Las Vegas would get you a pretty nice sized home here. I talked to a guy a few weeks ago that is moving up here from CA about 60 miles in from the coast, I think he said Ventura, and for 400K you'd get a really tiny home. That'll get you acerage here with a view in many cases.
Some of you guys on the east coast, aren't very familiar with tract homes or that style. These developments can take 30 minutes to get out of! Its insane. Its not like that here, but down south it is.
That's funny! Ventura is right on the coast - and anything under 500k is hard to find! And you're right - a starter home there would probably be in the 400k range. I used to live there - I left when a guy told me he put a deposit on his house while they were building it, and had 50k in equity by the time they finished it! I knew I couldn't save fast enough to afford a home there. Sure do miss the good surfing, 'tho!
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Houses were cheap here (Bakersfield) when I came, and decent-paying work was very hard to find. My house cost about 90k, and didn't go up a nickel for over 10 years. Today its almost tripled. Which means starter homes here are about 250k. Crazy."he...never charged nothing for his preaching, and it was worth it, too" - Mark Twain
I do however think that trusses indicate where the state of the trade is going. Look at Toll Brothers and Pulte and Hovanian. If you lower the skill needed to produce something, you lower the quality of who does it. The days when 75% of all housing is delivered on a truck and set with a crane by guys who don't speak any english or have even one clue of how to build a house from a pile of lumber are not far off. How long ater that will Framers be as valued as convienience store clerks?
I couldn't agree with you more. Nowadays no one goes through a trade school (myself included, although I did go to college) and many of the guys in this area learned how to frame boxes with simple trussed roofs and then thats it.
There is a builder a short distance away who stick frames most of his houses http://www.buchan.com/ and I seem to recall that his lead guys are pretty well educated. That isn't the norm around here.
In my area, DR Horton is coming in to build quite a few houses and I'm sure it'll be a lot of panelized stuff.
I'll answer the original question, which was "Let's here it from the guys who started out using trusses and still use trusses and have never stick framed a whole roof before."
The few houses I have GCd and worked on have all had roof frames that were mostly trusses.
But that would not stop me from trying one that is all stickframed. Solid geometry is solid geometry. I would figure everything out right from the planset, and have the whole roof kit cut before the top plates are set.
I might not be as fast or efficient as someone who concentrates on only roof cutting, but I would arrive at the same end point.
On another point, I have seen a lot of references to Toll Brothers in this thread. I am familiar with them, having been to their plants, offices, and jobsites. I toured their models in their Naples, FL project recently. Go to their website and see their models. Complex roofs everywhere, in all styles, done for all kinds of regions. Stickframed roofs? Never! Everything is trussed. And package prices go from $500K up to $3 million. These may be considered tract homes by some of us, but most would not call them that.
Personally, I think you need to know how to do a hand-cut roof before you take on trusses. A simple truss-gable, maybe not, but truss-hips have a lot of hand framing which require the basics of roof geometry. I try to pass on these basics to any young carpenter that can stand to listen to me long enough. To me, putting up a rafter roof is the epitome of rough carpentry. The geometry, fresh blade, clean cuts, tight fit. Oh, and no hangers! they just spoil the look.
"hand-cut" Uh, oh. I'll fail that test, if I can't use my skilsaw!"he...never charged nothing for his preaching, and it was worth it, too" - Mark Twain
"hand-cut" Uh, oh. I'll fail that test, if I can't use my skilsaw!
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Hey, you got a computer in your garage now?"he...never charged nothing for his preaching, and it was worth it, too" - Mark Twain
Huck,This guy has to be out there or he's just trying to bust your balls and anyone esles's balls for no apparent reason.Joe Carola
when i first started learning carpentry, i was told that if you couldn't cut in a roof, you were a helper......maybe they were b.s.ing me....
after i had done framing for a few years, i had the opportunity to visit the attic of the house i grew up in that my dad, g-dads, and others built in the 50's and discovered a let in wind brace on the underside of the rafters that you couldn't stick a dollar bill into the space between the 1x4 and the rafter.....i was IMPRESSED!
as i get older, i have developed a tremendous amount of respect for the carpenters of the era before nail guns, chop saws, power saws....they were craftsmen
coonie
when i first started learning carpentry, i was told that if you couldn't cut in a roof, you were a helper......maybe they were b.s.ing me....
They weren't bsing you. They were trying to impress upon you the value of higher learning.
Young un's that are truly motivated involve themselves into the higher learning needed to do all aspects of carpentry. There are several steps up the ladder in the life of a rough framer and learning all about roofs is one of them. Even though I have worked with trusses from day one, I quickly decided that I needed to understand the geometry of them and studied the books enough so that I could cut any roof, including an irregular roof in my third year.
I would have figured it out much quicker if I had this site as a resource or had a different mentor. All of my mentors only layed out roofs using the step system with a framing square. I never saw a calculator on the jobsite anywere, anytime. We weren't allowed to use them in carpentry school!
blue