How To Stick Frame Roof Rafters

If you re framing a gable roof on a new house or building a shed or even a doghouse with a gable roof you ll need to cut a number of roof rafters.

How to stick frame roof rafters.

With premanufactured trusses or with rafters and ceiling joists commonly called stick framing. Rafters are a good option when building something on a smaller scale such as a shed or a garage. It is always better to have a large rafter rather than be concerned with a sagging roof. Like wall studs and floor joists rafters and trusses are spaced every 16 or 24 inches from center to center.

The roof rafters provide integral structural support to the roof. Here we have a wood framed gable roof. They ll both result in the same quality when the build is finished each supporting the roof with the same strength. This will the first point of the rafter measurement line using the results of your rafter length calculation measure from this point along the rafter measurement.

Floor beam span tables of residential structural design we will now look at roof rafter and beam design. From one end of the rafter material using a speed square or framing square mark an x in 12 angle on the rafter and cut it measure down y height from the long point of the rafter cut and make a mark. Position the square at the end of the rafter board with the tongue on your left and facing away from you. Before you cut your boards you ll need to measure the width of your building and calculate the exact length of each rafter.

Framing a roof is the last step in framing new construction. The image below shows a cross section of our simple 12 x 13 house from the joist span tables section of this tutorial. The rafters are usually positioned directly above the wall studs. While most home builders will outsource the construction of roofing trusses the rafter supports of the roof itself learning to frame a roof yourself is one of the true arts of carpentry and a basic primer is covered below.

If your project had a rafter length of 8 or less a safe and strong method is to use 2x8 framed 16 on center. Stick framing combines roof rafters with ceiling joists. Continuing on from part 3. Rafter layout with a framing square.

Structures such as sheds or barns can be frames with rafters every 24 again make sure to consult local codes. There aren t many differences between rafters and trusses. There are two common ways of framing the roof of a house. This example is for a roof with an 8 12 pitch.

While truss roofs are the most popular construction style today by some estimates truss roofs outnumber stick frame roofs two to one there are regions of the country where builders. Roof framing rafter layout. Let s consider a basic gable wood roof framing design.