setting trusses with only 2?

mopower440 · Feb 13, 2004

anyone tell me how to get trusses up with only 2 people? I dont have a tractor or any kind of equipment to lift them up, nothing, only myself and 1 other person, i thought i had a few more people but you know how that goes..

gsganzer · Feb 13, 2004

You'll probably save yourself, your back and a whole lot of time by renting a "lankey" forklift for a day. I don't know how big your trusses are, but they're usually heavy and awkward.

I'm with you, and like to save money by doing things myself. But sometimes it pays to rent some equipment. Maybe someone will be able to give you some tips for the old manual, brute force method. I'm interested to hear some of the ingenuity people have derived.

beenthere · Feb 13, 2004

How long (span length)?

For my shed, which is 24x24', only 2 of us set the trusses in place, and the height was 10' above ground to the plates. Each truss was lifted one end up (2 people on the ground), and then the other end was lifted with 1 person on the ground and the other on the plate using a rope to lift. As I recall, it was a super downpour rain, and both of us (once wet) were too stubborn to stop. Once up, the trusses were tipped in place, lined up, and nailed to prevent movement and racking.

Granted, there is equipment to rent to make this chore much, much easier. And that is what I would do today, with being older and having more funds to play around with. /forums/images/graemlins/smirk.gif

mopower440 · Feb 13, 2004

cant really afford to rent anything as ive gone overbudget already with renting stuff, the trusses are only 24 foot, not too heavy, i know 2 of us can get them up on the top plates, but getting them upright and holding them while i crawl up there and brace them is another story..plus getting the gable end truss up with only 2 isnt going to happen, this is a pole barn and it took 3 to get the other gable end truss up and nailed to the posts..

Egon · Feb 13, 2004

Go back to your other thread. There is a description there.

Egon

Molerj · Feb 13, 2004

I'm really not trying to be a [censored] but from reading all of your posts, I think you are in a little over your head. There comes a time when you need to 'hire' some help. Sometimes all the explaining in the world still can't make us understand how the people in the know do things.

aloha · Feb 13, 2004

( cant really afford to rent anything as ive gone overbudget already )

Can you afford the costs of an injury? While it could be done, it would be far more dangerous with 2 people trying to manhandle the awkward trusses up that high than if you had a third strong body. We don't want to read about you in the Safety forum.

wroughtn_harv · Feb 14, 2004

I haven't followed your shop thread so I'm not aware of your construction materials.

If I was strapped for cash (always, price of fun it seems) and I had to lift wood trusses up, only had one true friend in the whole world besides the dog. I'd build two jib poles and use block and tackles.

I'd put the jib poles up at one end and raise a truss. Walk it over to it's position, fartherest from the jib poles. Raise the next, and the next, etc.

I've done this with steel, seven hundred pound pieces twenty feet long, lifted and placed with just two of us, and jib poles.

One of the greatest enablers of all time is a tight budget. Before all this modern equipment we did amazing things in amazing ways because we had no other options. Sometimes being in a tight spot financially frees us to think instead of doing plastic.

Bird · Feb 14, 2004

( getting the gable end truss up with only 2 isnt going to happen )

It can happen, if you know how. /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif I don't. But when we were building my brother's house, I helped make the 41 trusses to span 28' plus eaves. I wasn't there the day they put the trusses up, but they had told me it was no problem for the two of them to put them up in one day, and they had no lifts of any kind.