Taunton's for Pros By Pros: Framing Roofs

Accomplished roof framers rely on a variety of tools, techniques, and trade secrets to get the complex and dangerous job of roof framing done right. In Framing Roofs, a collection of articles from Fine Homebuilding magazine, you'll find out how the foremost framers work with speed and precision, and discover what it takes to master the craft of roof framing.

Written by the pros who actually do the work, these articles will help you to:

• design and build common, and not-so-common, residential roofs
• lay out and cut valley rafters with compound angles
• frame hips, valleys, eyebrows, and gable overhangs
• calculate tricky measurements quickly and accurately
• work safely and efficiently with roof trusses
• wave time by using production techniques

Formerly The Best of Fine Homebuilding: Framing Roofs, this newly revised edition features 30 percent new content, including the latest tools and techniques and updated photos and illustrations.

The original The Best of Fine Homebuilding: Framing Roofs is available in hardcover.

About the For Pros by Pros series
To get the best results when building or remodeling, you need advice from the best professionals in the business. For Pros By Pros books bring together the expert designers, builders, and remodeling pros who have written for Fine Homebuilding magazine.

Introduction

Part 1: HIP AND GABLE ROOFS
A Different Approach to Rafter Layout
Framing a Gable Roof
Framing a Hip Roof
Ceiling Joists for a Hip Roof
Framing a Dutch Roof
Joining Unequally Pitched Roofs
Simplified Valley Framing

Part 2: DORMERS AND BAYS
Framing a Bay Window with Irregular Hips
Shed-Dormer Retrofit
Raising an Eyebrow
Framing a Bay-Window Roof
Framing an Elegant Dormer
A Gable-Dormer Retrofit

Part 3: TRUSSES
Raising Roof Trusses
Building Hip and Valley Roofs with Trusses

Credits

Index

As a carpenter I came of age in the Midwest, where shallow roof pitches were as common as cornfields. When I finally got the chance to frame a steep roof, I got to frame it twice.

The first time, my fellow carpenters and I gave in to the lure of Friday quitting time -- the promise of paychecks, cold beers, and two days off -- and we failed to brace the roof properly. A big storm blew in that weekend and folded up the roof like someone snapping shut a set of Venetian blinds. It was a somber crew that assembled around the splintered mess on Monday morning.

Roofs are the most complicated and dangerous part of house framing. Geometry makes them complicated and height makes them dangerous. But roof framing is also pretty exciting. With the roof complete, you can stand back for the first time and see the building as the designer imagined it. And of course, framing a roof opens an umbrella over the house, protecting its vulnerable parts from the weather. It's no wonder that finishing a roof frame is a traditional point of celebration. The "topping-out" ceremony is usually marked by nailing an evergreen bough to the highest part of the frame.

You won't find any advice on "topping-out" in this book. But you will find advice to help you deal with the complexities and dangers of roof framing. Written by builders from all over the country, the articles in this book were originally published in Fine Homebuilding magazine. If I had read these articles 20 years ago, that roof might never have blown over.

--Kevin Ireton, editor-in-chief, Fine Homebuilding