After framing for years a safety guy told me the other day that the way we set trusses is unsafe. On tall houses we use our picker truck to set them, so we get a guy on each ed and one up at the ridge nailing ridge blocks to space the trusses out. Safety guy said its to dangerous (which he’s right). How else can we do it without impeeding the crane coming stright down when setting the truss?
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Did they safety guy know the correct way, or did it just "look" dangerous to him?
I fear no man & only one GOD. Me
Unfortunetly
I dont know how YOU would be safer?
WE would be safer if we stole your picker truck to use when we set our trusses!
I haven't used a guy at the ridge putting spacer blocks in. I have seen it done that way.
I have a guy on each wall, one running the tagline and shuffling the deck of trusses, and usually one other guy running braces (16' 2x4's in a W pattern). The brace guy lets the others get a few trusses ahead and then starts bracing them off.
We also use the fold out spacers. Simpson makes them. THat holds things together until the bracing guy gets there.
My gables are sheathed and the overhangs are nailed on while on the ground. Same for hips. We start at one of those and plumb it, brace it, then go from there.
I have a lot of stuff at work I can post. If I can find this thread on Monday I'll work on it more then.
Can't say that I've ever seen anyone put ridge blocks in.
I don't understand why you didn't just ask this safety guy what the correct way to do it was. He has to know.
The safety guy had no suggestions as to how to do it. I love it when somebody tells me "hey you can't do it that way", and then don't know how to do it the "right" way.
Who and what is this safety guy and what makes him qualified if he doesn't even know how to recommend how you can set it up safe?Joe Carola
Setting trusses safely. Where's the fun in that?
I hardly know where to start with this subject. There's a lot to cover. Maybe next winter I could do a broader post on it. For starters, I attached a PDF of HIB-91. It's handling and bracing info that's typically sent out in a packet along with truss deliveries. And I'd venture to guess that it's thrown away 90% of the time.There's also a lot of info here:http://www.sbcindustry.com/bcsi.phpIn particular the one called "B2" covers erection bracing..I've been on a lot of jobsites after trusses have fallen over from lack of proper bracing. On EVERY last one of them, there's been one common theme - Lack of diagonal bracing. When you run a row of bracing across a set of trusses, all you've done is tied the trusses together. They can all still fall over in the same direction. The braces have to be tied off to something solid through diagonal braces. .If you read through the stuff that the WTCA puts out, you'll notice that it recommends a HELL of a bunch of bracing. I once mentioned to an engineer that I thought it was overkill, and the engineer about came unglued. Those bracing recommendations were arrived at through careful testing and research, etc. I got chewed out pretty good.I probably can't OFFICIALLY say that those official recommendations are too restrictive and/or conservative. But I will say that I've never seen a set of trusses on the ground that had diagonal braces on the braces. To me, that's the most important safety recommendation I can come up with. Brace your bracing well, and the trusses are a LOT more likely to stay in a vertical position.
Skill to do comes of doing. [Ralph Waldo Emerson]
Boss, Hijack here , but can you address this question about permanent bracing of bottom chords please? 89552.57
"Poor is not the person who has too little, but the person who craves more."...Seneca
Thanks boss that was interesting but my problem isn't kepping trusses on the roof its setinng them on the roof. Most of the time we set trusses with our picker truck. Its basically a crane with a 90 foot boom we use for putting cages of concrete forms in basements. So we use it to set trusses as well. We hook up to the center of the truss and drop it onto the walls. Theres a guy at each end to set the trusses on the line and nail them. The problem is that theres a guy at the top of the truss hanging on for dear life nailing ridge blocks in which spaces the truss out.
The problem is, that this guy is kinda sitting on the truss and hanging on and trying to nail blocks. There is really no way for him to tie off and we can't figure out a good system for something solid for hime to stand on. We thought about nailing strapping temporarly closer to the bottom but that impeeds the crane when there 10 or 12 feet of strapping hanging out. We were thinking of precut pieces of 1x3 and nailing them closer to the bottom, but we fell that it is to time comsuming and wasteful. I hope that gets everyone on the same page. Keep the good ideas coming.
You don't have to use long lumber when you're initially setting the trusses. You can use short pieces and then follow up with long stuff. I've seen guys use long stuff on the back of the house and slide the trusses under it when they set 'em. Then they use short pieces on the front until they get a few set and can put longer braces on. I can't imagine working the peak on unbraced trusses, unless they were REALLY small ones. And you still definitely need the diagonals to brace the braces to something solid.
If all the world is a stage, where is the audience sitting?
Timberline 69,
This may only address part of the problem, but how about putting the ridge block on the truss your raising,before you raise it? Since you're only using it as a spacer to start.Then you don't need someone at the ridge. Then you can brace the bottoms, and work your way to the ridge from the inside and/or the outside, then nail the ridge off as you reach it.
This is the way I learned, many moons ago.
Geoff
Timberline,
I use longer pieces of strapping to brace off trusses.
I start with a piece about 4' long nailed of to the braced gable truss, and set as far up the slope of the top chord as we can reach from the walls. We then use that piece as a ladder to climb up and nail another one until we can reach the peak.
Set one truss, slip the next one under the 2' overhanging strapping and nail it off, then go to longer strapping as we work our way across the roof structure. With enough trusses nailed into place you can start to use strapping that will overhang 8-10' and speed things along. Always add diagonals as you go , like Boss pointed out can be a life and death situation .Quite often though we drop trusses flat onto the walls and disconnect from the lift line while flat , then lift each truss into place individually by hand.
"Poor is not the person who has too little, but the person who craves more."...Seneca