How to build a roof

[Mick Leek]

Hi all.

I hope someone can help me here. I have built a single storey extension at the side of my house. all is well up to now and the building control officer is happy with everything i have done.

I am now upto the roof and it is quite a complex structure being 1 large roof and a smaller roof at the rear. it will have 4 hips and one valley. Is this something i should be taking on myself ? i have the plans and rafter layout and am quite a competant person when it comes to DIY. I have managed to dig and lay footings, Build to DPC, lay the floor slab and take the brickwork upto the roof level without to much trouble.

I just need to know how the joists are secured to the Hips ? are they simply nailed ? I can probably post a link to a picture if that will help ?

Thanks in advance.

Mick.

[masona]

Are you making the roof or having it made by truss frame (gang nail plate type)?

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[Mick Leek]

The roof is quite complex and will only have a 16 degree pitch. This is because there are three windows on the side of the house and if we increase the pitch more, we will lose 1 fully and half each of the other 2

the roof has to be made on site, as in cut all the wood and knock it all together.

I cant find a joiner anywhere that is willing to take it on ... they all look at the plans and say... " well im too busy" but i will ask a guy i know....

there must be someone near Blackburn who fancies a few beer vouchers...


here is a picture

the roof to the right is what i need doing


the roof has only got a 16 degree pitch and so cand be pre made... need to be knocked up on site

[masona]

Similar to my roof but instead of 2 section of roof , I made it into 1 roof if that makes sense by putting in a brick pier and a small overhang roof so you only have to have 3 sided roof. Is it possible then you wouldn't have to have a gulley.

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[Mick Leek]

Main reason for the smaller section at the rear is that my boundry cuts in at the back and if i extend the roof out it will go over the border... the lovely people next door objected to the planning 3 times and i feel they would love to cause me more hassle.

[Mr Winston]

Mick

is your building regs application a Building Notice or Full Plans application

Ifs its Full Plans then the design and roof timber sizes are likely to have been checked when you application was approved. So the sizes are likely to be on the drawings. Check with your BCO to see if the roof design has been approved.

If its a Building Notice you will need someone to give you calculations and design the roof - best to have it approved by the BCO before building.


Regarding the Hips - if the pitch is as low as 16 degree for the rafters then the hips will be hip beams rather than hip boards so should have hangers to supporrt the head of the rafters rather than the conventional nailing when hipboards are used.

Obviously you will need to use a tile that can be used at such a low pitch- so your choice is more restricted than ifit were 25degree +

[Mick Leek]

Thanks for that.

Plans were submitted and have been passed by building regs... I do have a rafter layout design on the drawings but as soon as a joiner looks at it everyone has questioned the design and why it has a valley and three hips when it isnt required... they then say they don't wont to do job.

I can only presume it is a lot of work and they just don't want to do it because of the complexity..

I decided to at least mount the roof plates on the inner wall yesterday. After one roofer came round i asked how they should be done. He said " use 4 x 2 and dry bed them.... So i did.

I then spoke to another joiner who said all the work i did yesterday was a waste of time cause it should have been 4 x 3 and bedded on compo..

I am SO mad cause i was planning to wet bed them and the roofer guy said don't bother cause it is often an hindurance..

All i want is someone who will do the job for me and do it right... I have now got to the stage where i have lost interest with this project. I just want a roof to stop the rain water running under the door into the kitchen

There must be a good roofing joiner who looks on here and lives near Blackburn.

Thanks all

[masona]

Take your drawing to the truss frame company and they will work it out what you need then you put it together with the easy to read instruction, it's a lot cheaper this way. The norm is to bed the 4"x2" wallplate onto the wall ready for the truss frame.

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[Mick Leek]

Hi all..

Ok i have spoken to the architect, building control office, and planning today... We have decided to extend the eves as suggested by Masona (Cheers for that)

need to get the drawings re submitted to planning but so long as it doesnt go over the property border we are fine...

hopefully i will now find a joiner who is willing to do a far simpler design "Fingers Crossed"

If it were warmer weather i would have loved to carry on with the work myself then i could have said " i built that 100% " as it is now, will be " I built 80% of that" Still pleasing to be able to say that

Thanks for all your help... will post a piccie soon i hope

[masona]

As you have got this far, do you think you could not do the roof specially if truss frame made the roof section & drawing plan instruction?

All you have to do is to nail it together and cut some timber but I don't know what you can or can't do though.

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[Mick Leek]

Unfortunatly the weather is beating me... i have a full time job and have used nearly all my holidays building the structure...

We are getting water under the door into the kitchen cause the new floor is the same level.

everytime a plan to do a little it rains.... All this plus the fact that i have totally plastered the original house from top to bottom, fitted a new kitchen, converted a flat window into a bay, and so on... Have been doing this since March

Getting very tired now..



here is a link to a few more pictures if you are interested


has you can see i have been busy.......

will post a few more pictures later this evening when i get home...

Mick

[ace]

Mick,

I do a lot of cut roofing for a living. Here's one I did a few months back -

[url] http://www.thesitebuilder.net/roofing/p1010002.jpg [/url]

There is something very wrong with the sketch you have provided in as much as the valley is not parallel to one of the hips and the two hips should at least come to a point. You may, depending on sizes even be able to put a short ridge board here and effectively increase the pitch of the roof which would be a good thing.

Here's a rough sketch -[url] http://www.thesitebuilder.net/roofing/plan.jpg [/url]

If you are showing joiners that sketch then you are putting them off because the way it is drawn it will not work.

The wall plate should be 4 x 3 and bedded on mortar so that it is as level as possible and so you can move it about relative to the top of the brickwork in order to set it as square and parallel as possible.

I can can also tell you that there is no need to re-submit your plans and extend the eaves. In fact, you will just be swapping one problem for another. If you take the trouble to draw this out you will see that you will have to place the wallplate higher on the narrower part of the building for the rafters to land on and so you will end up with ceiling joists that are higher in that area.

For a complex roof such as that then you may find that trusses are not necessarily cheaper and not an easy solution either.

If you send me some dimensions of the outside sizes of the wallplate I'll look at it and see what I think.

Cut roofing is a dieing art. You will struggle to find someone to do that for you who doesn't use the caveman approach of just hacking away at things till they fit.(ish)

Finally, and I don't mean to be rude, I don't see this as a DIY project. I'm not saying you can't do it but it will take a lot of reading, practice, and research. Unless you are a whizzo with trigonomety or a framing square, understand what is meant by " the unadjusted length", "hip drop" etc. then you are going to struggle

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[Mick Leek]

You want a job ???????/

Your drawing is something like what i was thinking.....

I have NO idea what this guy is doing.. where are you based.... im being serious if you fancy a job... i want the roof to look right and people to think, that looks nice.

I am now clutching at straws all i want is a bloody roof

i guess there is nothing to stop me lowering the ceilling joists so the roof hight is same as the front ?

Thanks,

Mick

[ace]

Mick,

You will only need to mess about with the ceiling joists if you increase the OVERHANG at the back

Post the sizes to the outside of your wallplates so I can take a look

I'm based in the West Midlands so you're too far away.

[Mick Leek]

Hi Ace,

here is a plan of the extension... i think we increased the wall on the smaller building another 50mm. I have ammended the dimentions...

Please note these are all internal dims.. please add another 300mm for the external to all measurements



Hope that helps Ace..

thanks for your help feeling a little better now