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Cutting and Laying Roof Rafters for Vaulted Roof

Bob helps lay the rafters on the roof of the home. The rafters all follow the same cutting pattern so they can all be laid into place. After two of the guide rafters are in place, a ridge pole is put in. The ridge pole supports the upper end of the rafters and is made of laminated veneer lumber (LVL). After the ridge pole is in place, the rest of the rafters can be laid down. The rafters have a bird mouth cut. Once plywood is laid on the roof's exterior, hurricane clips will be used to secure the roof.

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Cutting and Laying Roof Rafters for Vaulted Roof Now Playing

Cutting and Laying Roof Rafters for Vaulted Roof

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Roof Framing for Hurricane Safety with Reflective Sheathing for Energy Savings

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Clip Transcript For:

Cutting and Laying Roof Rafters for Vaulted Roof

computer-generated transcript - may not be 100% accurate

" That is a fine gable roof that you're looking at up there, where all the rafters are basically coming together at the ridge pole, and what we're doing now is creating a similar roof on a smaller scale. All of the rafters have to obviously be identical, and so that's why they start of the process with a pattern. And the pattern helps you to make all the cuts for what's known as the bird's mouth, which is that part of the rafter that sits on the outside wall on the actual top plate of outside wall. And then angle cut that determines the pitch of the roof, and these roofs are running 4 and 12. Is that right Kevin?"

" That's correct."

" Which means for every 12 feet that it runs horizontal, it goes up 4 feet. At many times in modern construction, all you have are truss systems which are terrific and they're cost efficient. Are we ought to whack a little bit?"

" I don't mind."

" Okay."

" And so that's just tacked in placed. And now we'll be ready to take this ridge pole and put it up there."

" Go ahead."

" Now the ridge the supports the upper end of the raft. And the ridge that was used in here is made up of laminated veneer lumber or LVL. Wood veneer is layered in a manner similar to plywood to make this the orientation of those layers, makes this LVL a lot stronger than the dimension lumber."

" And Russel isn't it nice when it fits right the first time."

" Sure it is boss."

" It makes things a lot easier."

" Now the other end, we have a [unk] in place, a short piece of 2 x 4, so that although we seem to have just 1 carpenter down at the end. In fact, the ridge pole is being held up by a 2 x 4."

" All a matter of planning."

" Okay, now Kevin does it matter whether you stagger them or you put them all on 1 side at once or?"

" You can start on putting them all on 1 side as long as you have some bracing on the other side Bob."

" Right."

" Just to stiffen it."

" Just too stiffen it. Then we've got 1 on this side which is right here and it's stiffening the ridge pole. So, we're gonna present all of these into place 1 by 1."

" We are using 2 x 10 dimensional lumbers for the rafters. You can see how the bird mouth cut fits on the top plate of the outside wall. And the angled cut fits against the ridge. The pattern that we use insures that all of the cuts are consistent. Since, we pre-cut all these rafters to go pretty fast, and they're just toe-nailed using 6D penny common nails. Kevin. Is there a reason why we didn't use prefabricated roof trusses for these roof systems?"

" This section that we're framing right now Bob is a cathedral or vaulted section and we want to get that 10 inches of insulation, right in here for our value. So that's 1 of the reason. The other is time. This has been a kind of a fast-track job."

" Right."

" We just didn't have time to order them. So, we're going with standard stick cut roof and we'll have our insulation and air space all in this 2 x 10 section."

" Okay."

" Well, let's let these guys fly with the rest of the rafters."

" Alright. That's the last 1 on this night. Now Kevin, do we put the hurricane clips on next?"

" We hold on the hurricane clips, Bob, until we get the plywood on the exterior and the hurricane clip gets attached through the plywood to the top plates and to the rafter."

" Okay and that's part of the strength of the system, right?"

" Yes it is."

" Yes."

" Okay. It was easy enough. Now, let's just do the whole thing over on the other side. Once all of the rafters are in place on this side of the roof, the roof and the outside walls will be ready for sheathing. We'll be using some new roofing techniques that will strengthen this roof against high winds."

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