I am guessing that the reason the end trusses have the vertical webs 24″ oc is simply to provide a nailing surface for the sheathing. I further assume that it can be built that way because the designer assumes that it will be fully supported along the bottom chord by a wall.
My question is this – If you double up that gable truss with one of the regular trusses, would you be able to remove/minimize the load-bearing window and door headers in the wall below?
Separate, but related comments: I just recently read a thread here that talked about trusses where someone mentioned that the gable trusses behave differently than the regular trusses. That Q was related to notching the gable end trusses for lookouts. Also, I talked to a friend at work today about how a garage with the door on the gable end probably does not need a massive header anyway – especially if the double up the end one as I mentioned. (not to mention all of the strength that comes from applying sheathing to a gable end truss.
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Yo Jim -
Saw the post, but can't really do any drawings here at home tonight.
Give me some time in the morning, and I'll post some drawings that explain things a bit better than I can with words alone.
You could double it up, but it would be simpler and cheaper to order the gable truss as load bearing and it will come with the same webs as the common trusses with the vertical nailers added.
If the truss is not too large, you could also just add the vertical members to a common truss yourself and save a few bucks.
And yes, from a load bearing point you can eliminate additional headers. But you may need to have some sort of header arrangement to stiffen the wall from flexing in and out over a large opening such as a garage door.
Terry
We do wierd gable situations all the time. I've attached 3 examples.
The one called "Partial Bearing Gable" is a typical gable, but without full bearing. With the loading we have around here, a gable will generally work fine with an unsupported gap of 8' or so. But it may not work in other areas.
The one called "Structural Gable" is capable of spanning completely unsupported, like a regular truss. We often use these where draftstops are needed.
The last one is called "Partial Gable". We use these on houses where there's a smaller gable in front of a bigger one.
Does this help any? I don't mind talking about it in more detail if you want more info.
I realized, sitting at the PC this am, that I never looked at you reply to this Q online. I am sorry if this caused this to not drop off your subscription list or wahtever it is that Prospero does (I still don't understand it, I just delete the email that is the "subscription list" and read the ones that are direct responses - and, of course, browse endlessly every day . . .)
ANyhow, I just read this over and I get it now. I will spec a load bearing gable trusses in my application.
Thanks for your help.