At Home In The Woods

[Coyote machine]

Obed,
You're welcome. I hope the ideas are of some use to you.

Regarding the trusses, most large scale lumberyards have the availability to get roof trusses and microlam beams and TJI floor joists specked out for you via TJ Xpert framing plans, (punch it into Google it will bring up a book of framing guidelines.)
or iLevel by Weyerhaeuser 1.888.iLevel8 (1.888.453.8358). You shouldn't need to hire an architect or designer, except to possibly incur a design fee by the lumberyard's designer for drawing your plans to scale if you chose to go that route. For instance, I was able to take a materials list to my lumberyard and talk to the designer on staff and have him draw me a set of plans that specked where each joist and beam and truss would layout. The truss company did the calculations and $ for $ engineered trusses beat cobbed together on site trusses any day.
There is NO question the roof will stand the test of time; and you know they are engineered to your buildings stress for wind, snow load, etc.
Spend the $ in the basic structural components and the rest will go together as one would like. Anyone with moderate skill can build a roof or a house; that doesn't make it a house or roof that is necessarily safe for you and your family.

 

[mikefromnh]

This is a new one for me. Was this always part of the plan? or did you decide to call in an engineer to help your framer do his job? roofs are fairly simple. Once you've done a dozen of them, give or take, there's not much more to it. The biggest issue is slopy cuts on your angles, but again, most guys have it down fairly quickly.

Am I reading too much between the lines here?

Eddie

I got to agree with Eddie - this is a new one for me.

But, if you need someone to design your sheet rock layout for you let me know. I'm sure we can work something out.

 

[eepete]

Our roof are trusses. I think some of the truss vs. built on site comes down to the size and complexity of the roof. We had a big open room that could not be done with stick built approaches. The roofline of the house is a simple shed design, so there is a _lot_ of space in the roof/attic, and that would be harder to do on site. What is different with what you are doing is that the approach taken on the roof is usually made as part of the design since it affects what you can do (spans and spaces needed). The job goes much faster, but you're also paying for crane time and a crew to fasten and block the trusses in.

We had a disaster with our trusses- they got off by 1.5 inches putting them down, as you can see in a picture. They didn't stop, and there was a 1 month delay of game with lawyers before the subcontractor came back and re-worked all the trusses (extended one side, cut and reinforced another). So don't be afraid to be on top of things, and check the dimensions at all your top plates before the big day when the roof goes on.
They also didn't do well on the spacing when they put up their temporary blocks, which would give the drywallers fits and make some lighting fixtures look funny. That was all re-worked. In a spec house, they would have kept on trucking...

In one picture, you can see the start of the smoke block on a floor truss where it opens up into the "big room". Helps hold the wall sections, and slows down flames if the kitchen is on fire big time. This room is 24 feet wide by 34 feet long, and the top is at the 2nd story level. No way to roof it stick built, had to have engineer trusses.

Another picture shows a huge space filled with trusses, and behind it a very simple roof. The simple roof could have been stick built, but since everything was set up for trusses (crew and crane) it was also engineered. The house has 4 foot overhangs, and the pre-made trusses helped there too (also have horror story there for another day).

I don't have a picture of this, but, I would attach the trusses with Simpson straps. I think it's stronger than toe-nailing and gravity.

So my problems with a bad sub that could have been caught if I was more diligent not withstanding, I see no problem with trusses. I hope you can see where the size and complexity of the roof and house design would probably drive the decision. The other factors which it is abundantly clear you are quite capable with, even though you are in the midst of the "fog of construction" would be cost and speed of installation. I can see where in winter, where sometimes the windows for construction are small, speeding up the process could be a win.

Hope this helps.

Pete

 

[Pops15]

This is a new one for me. Was this always part of the plan? or did you decide to call in an engineer to help your framer do his job? roofs are fairly simple. Once you've done a dozen of them, give or take, there's not much more to it. The biggest issue is slopy cuts on your angles, but again, most guys have it down fairly quickly.

Am I reading too much between the lines here?

Eddie

Its a new one for me too, but considering some of the issues Obed has run into with his framer I think this was a good idea.
Pops

 

[Pops15]

I don't have a picture of this, but, I would attach the trusses with Simpson straps. I think it's stronger than toe-nailing and gravity.



Pete

"Hurricane brackets" have been required nearly everywhere for a long time. You still need to toe nail the trusses or rafters to the top plate. The brackets just ad another layer of protection against the roof lifting during high winds. They're cheap insurance and a good idea.
Pops

 

[2manyrocks]

Seems a little odd to have framed walls and still be talking about truss design.

 

[Obed]

Here are the latest pictures.

 

[dcyrilc]

Here are the latest pictures.

Well, your above ground and that's awsome. It won't be long now and you'll have a sealed shell. No more having to worry about the sub-floor or the rain.

Nobody else has asked, so I'm going to...
Any more for us on the eviction leading up to the properties and house? I'm dying here wanting to know what happened.

 

[Obed]

How We Got Evicted! Part 3
Naturally, we wondered who phoned the zoning office to complain that we were living in a camper. However, it wasn't completely obvious who was behind the complaint; there were a few possibilities.

Suspect #1 Jim
Jim owned the house behind the 1/2 acre lot where we lived in the camper. His driveway separated our lot from the yellow house beside us. When were moving onto the lot, I didn't think I had enough room to get the storage trailer onto our lot using our driveway. Driving across the first 10 feet of Jim's driveway appeared to be the best way to get the trailer onto our lot. While I should have asked Jim's permission first, I didn't see any real harm in pulling the truck and trailer across his driveway.

When I tried to drive across Jim's driveway, the front and back of the trailer bottomed out on one side and I got stuck. It took about an hour to jack up the fully loaded trailer, put some blocks and boards under the wheels and get out of the predicament. During this time Jim showed up. It turns out that there was some bad blood between Jim and our landlady. Jim informed us that because of circumstances between him and our landlady, we could not use his driveway. So we drove the trailer back to our in-laws' house to give us time to figure out what to do.

During the 3 years we lived on that lot, we never used Jim's driveway again. That was too bad. It was very difficult to maneuver the trailer I used for transporting the tractor in and out of our narrow driveway but we made due. To Jim's credit, a few weeks after we moved there, Jim told me he owned a skid-steer and to let him know if I ever needed him something done that required a skid-steer. On the other hand, Jim made it very clear that we needed to respect his property borders and did some annoying things while we lived there to reinforce this point.

 

[Obed]

Seems a little odd to have framed walls and still be talking about truss design.

We were looking at roof design, not truss design at this point. The truss design was completed long ago. I think the confusion here is that our truss designer also provided the drawings for the stick built roof design.

Obed