On 1/3/2013 8:02 AM, Tim Watts wrote: ...
Not necessarily...they're commonly also called "floor trusses"...
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11 years ago
Why are trusses being used in homes
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11 years ago
On Thursday 03 January 2013 14:26 willshak wrote in alt.home.repair:
Might be where you are -
In England, for the 1950's period +- 20 years, 4x2 are pretty normal for rooves on mid sized to smaller houses.
The last trussed roof I saw was using virtually matchsticks - 2x1.5" at best
- just an awful lot of them!
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On Thursday 03 January 2013 14:28 TomC wrote in alt.home.repair:
If using glasswool/sheepswoold/rockwool. You can roughly halve the thickness if using a PIR type foamboard (eg Kingspan/Celotex etc). Say, on a 4x2" rafter roof, you can, according to English building regulations currently in force, have:
1) 3"/75mm between rafters leaving a 1"/25mm air gap provided you use a breathable membrane under tiles. 2) Another 3" under the rafters will still leave a lot of space. Another option is to warm-deck the roof and stick the foam board on the outside of the rafters.- Vote on answer
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11 years ago
On Thursday 03 January 2013 14:23 Pat wrote in alt.home.repair:
I dispute your use of "quality".
If you said "just adequate", I would agree.
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11 years ago
On Thursday 03 January 2013 14:30 dpb wrote in alt.home.repair:
Fairy'nuff - we'd usually call those "engineered" but it was what I was thinking of. I have no objection to those and it does avoid plumber hacking bloody great notches in them.
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11 years ago
In most cases, trusses use less lumber because they can make use of smaller 2x4 lumber instead of larger rafters and ceiling joists.
Based on materials alone, it kind of depends on the roof design. Most of the time, a truss still costs less. If you factor in labor costs, trusses go in faster and therefore cost less to install.
Trusses can be ordered with attic rooms. Most aren't ordered that way because of cost and/or there isn't enough headroom in the attic anyway.
Trusses offer many advantages:
- Since they're built in a factory with jigs, they are consistent and accurately measured.
- They install quickly saving labor costs and help to get a building closed in to the weather faster.
- They can span large distances if you want an open floorplan. Walls then become simple partitions that can be moved around as needed.
- They provide lots of space for insulation. In a vaulted ceiling with stick framed lumber, you have to use large oversized rafters to accomodate the necessary insulation.
Not always. My wife and I carried our roof trusses about 100 feet down to our house, set them on the walls, and tilted them up ourselves. Granted, ours only spanned 16', but we could have handled larger trusses easily too.
I used trusses on part of our house, and stick framed the rest.
Where we had bearing walls to support the roof, I used 2x12's to span the rooms and provide space for insulation.
In our living room we needed to span a 16' space, with a 6/12 pitch inside and a 9/12 pitch outside, and a 2' high space for insulation. This would have been expensive and difficult to build with stick framing. Trusses handled this situation easily at a much lower cost.
We did stick frame our garage roof using 2x6 rafters and 2x12 ceiling joists (to free span the 24' wide garage). With an 8/12 roof pitch this gave us a lot of storage space in the attic.
Anthony Watson Mountain Software
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11 years ago
I am always amazed at the efficiency when I drive by new construction and I see a crane setting up and a load of trusses and a finished roof later in the day.
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11 years ago
Without the "caps", how are they held in place? How does the decking attach to the joists? They just have 3/4" ply standing on edge? Really?
"Anyone can build a bridge than can stand. It takes an engineer to build a bridge that barely stands." ;-)
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11 years ago
Well, of course they're engineered but a truss is still a truss whether it's flat or peaked or whatever-shaped to fit the need...it's the principle of using the diagonal member to take the load and provide the stiffness in lieu of solid material that's the key here, not the shape or the purpose.
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11 years ago
It may use more lumber but it will be from smaller cheaper trees.
The load is distributed better. There are no large point loads on the walls.
Trusses are available that allow for living space in the roof.
It allows the roofs to be factory manufactured off-site.
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11 years ago
Yep, The addition I put on my very small house is 18'x30' with the trusses spanning the 30' dimension (needed to match the existing roof).
Yes, trusses are cheaper both in the lumber used, time to build and time to erect. They do not need a "crew to erect other than the carpenters alrady on scene plus the truck driver to operate the trucks crane (part of the delivery cost.
Harry K
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11 years ago
I am glad to see that you have just overturned over a 100 years of construction practices. Too bad taht 2 ourt of three of your reasons are wrong.
Harry K
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11 years ago
It's not that the builders are lazy or incompetent, it's just good business sense. It's more efficient to have them built in a factory in controlled environment, Most of the time, attic space aren't engineered for loft use anyway, even though many people think they can put some plywood down and built some knee walls and move in. Then they complain about the below ceiling sagging.
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11 years ago
How big is your house? 16ft wide is not a very large house, unless it's long and narrow. And if you have any overhang, then the house would only be 24 of 15ft wide....
I can see being able to hand carry a 16ft truss. Probably up to a 22ft by hand.
Of you only have a 14 to 16 foot indoor span, you must not have a center wall, because your rooms would only be 7 or 8 foot wide.
I'm planning to build a small single story house this summer, and intend to stick build it. I'm an experienced carpenter so that is not difficult. I intend to make it 23 ft wide. That way the floor and ceiling joists are 12 footers, overlapped in the center over a beam. Having a center wall for support, will allow rooms to be about 11ft. wide. That's adaquate, even though I'd prefer a little wider, but cost is the big factor. For length, I'm thinking 30ft. I can always build an addition later, and probably will as money allows. I intend to use the attic for part of the living space, (bedroom & storage) so that way I can make the entire house smaller. Because of this, I think I'll get more livable space for the money, even if the larger lumber costs more than trusses. The plan is 2x6 for the roof rafters, 2x8 for the floor and ceiling joists.
This house will be a big improvement over the cabin I live in now, which is only 12 x 16 ft. and has no indoor plumbing.
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11 years ago
Huh? No caps? How? One of my son's buddy is engineer in charge at a local plant where they produce trusses and so called silent floor joists, laminated micro beams. I can't see how they can make the joist w/o caps.
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11 years ago
??? Somehow I don't picture that unless you mean running them _through_ the bottom chord.
Harry K
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11 years ago
Ah, now I get it.
Harry K
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11 years ago
Hi, That is true but still it depends on experienced trades people. There are many poorly slapped together houses flooding the market. Always buyer beware like every thing else. I always had my houses custom built per my specs. 7 times in my life time including one 4 season cabin in the woods.
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11 years ago
On Thursday 03 January 2013 17:14 Steve B wrote in alt.home.repair:
I guess a lot comes down to the roof angle too.
If you have a 40 degree pitch as I do on a 8x12m building, then it is begging for a loft conversion. Though, these days, you might as well build that in from the get-go - as someone said, if you can get engineered trusses with big cuboid spaces built in, then why not...
If you have a 20 degree (or less) roof, no-one is likely to do very much in the roof space...
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11 years ago
But it only makes sense to use them in the spring. I quote from the website:
"Why have they become so popular lately? There are numerous answers to this question, how ever, the most important are the may cost saving benefits."
If they only save money in May, that really puts them at a disadvantage to other building methods.