How To Build Your Own Roof Trusses

Use of manufactured roof trusses can dramatically cut labor costs when framing a gable roof compared to building rafters.

How to build your own roof trusses.

A how to on homemade wood truss construction. 2x6 or 2x8 timber. Then plan for the bottom chord of the truss to be 1 4 inch longer than the floor of the structure. The very first step for building roof trusses is to prepare a design layout that can be sketched by a professional architect or can also be done by using a software that is specifically meant to design a roof truss.

Trusses can be constructed with smaller sized lumber than rafters and often their cost is not significantly higher than normal rafters. Trusses are required by all building codes to be engineered by a structural engineer and have an engineer s stamp on the truss s drawings. Now assembly of your roof trusses can finally begin. The alternative is to build up the roof s frame with 2x8s and 2x10s.

With the pieces cut you can now assemble the truss. There are a few different methods of building trusses below you ll find basic instructions to build a hip roof truss which is going to be your average building truss. Build your own roof trusses. The truss is built on the ground and is then raised and affixed to the frame of the home or building.

Install the roof trusses. Toe nail them into the top plate to secure them and then make sure they are braced laterally using blocking or long purlins. Take two rafters and connect the peak at the plumbed corner you created. How about starting the article on build your own roof trusses by saying don t even try to build your own roof trusses and explain thereafter you are wasting everyone s time with this title and should re write it to say don t build your own roof trusses your article praising the recorcinol glue used by the us navy never gets around to describing even one truss.

Roof trusses are prefabricated triangulated wooden structures used to support the roof. The second step in building a roof truss is to prepare the materials needed. To build a simple wood truss start by measuring the length and height of the structure you re reinforcing to determine how big your truss should be. The best way to assemble the trusses is to lay each rafter and bottom chord on the ground in the desired shape.

Place the base on the work surface and then place a truss plate at the end. Once the trusses are constructed lift them into place and set them onto the top plates of the exterior walls just as you would a beam or joist. Step 2 build the roof truss. Do this by nailing the triangular gusses to the rafters.