Truss questions

[tclement]

I have been asked to do a quality control inspection of a house under constructions. I found some issues with floor joists and span ratings, other items of poor quality constuction, but I am not sure on the engineered roof trusses. This is a fairly complicated roof with lots of angles. I left my camera cable at the office, so I can't post pictures yet.

I appears the contractor build the garage walls too short, and to make the tusss line up, he set them atop a verticle 2x4 to extend them 12-18". He married 2x4's on both sides, and toenailed the 2x4 to the top plate on the garage wall. He also added a 2x4 on top of one side of most of the trusses to get the sheathing to line up.

There are other trusses that have 2x4' running across on top o the trusses and the sheathing installed over the 2x4.

It looks hokie, but is it acceptable?

Tom

[Gerry Beaumont]

Hi to all,

Tom any analysis of this build would have to be based on the original drawings or the as builts noting changes made and approoved by the architect or engineer.

Were you able to see the engineering designs?

Regards

Gerry

[tclement]

No, the client does not have blueprints, just plans purchased form homeplan.com. The contractor took those to a local company, BMC West to build the trusses. BMC says he got what he ordered. I am going tocall BMC today to see if they will come out to see if the trusses have been compromised by his installation.

He also failed to install h-clips, which I hought were in the IRC. Montana applies IRC 2003, for residential codes, where H-clips in the 2003 code or added later?

[Jeffrey R. Pope]

It sounds as if he simply extended the wall framing upward, which may well be acceptable. The trusses cannot be "field modified" without engineer approval.

[Bruce A. King]

H-clips are needed with 24 inch on center rafters or trusses when 7/16 OSB or 1/2 plywood is used for sheathing. 16 on center does not need it.

[tclement]

Well, this place is not what I would want to pay 300K for. The trusses are 24 on center, with no clips. Trusses set poorly making ridge lines look like a snake. Here are a couple of pics.

[Larry Ewens]

Originally Posted by jpope

It sounds as if he simply extended the wall framing upward, which may well be acceptable. The trusses cannot be "field modified" without engineer approval.

Unfortunately that is all he did. I think it is definately not acceptable. In the very least he should have buillt a knee wall on top of the existing to increase height.
Larry

[mrowan]

Thomas

You can only do a framing inspection with the plans and engineering documents, otherwise you have no idea what the layout and detailing of the trusses, framework, structural lumber, headers, studs etc are? For example should wall studs be doubled under these bearing points? Is the truss bearing within 5” of the stud support if it is supposed to?

Each truss for this roof will have a page on the engineering document. The elevation and bearing points will be shown, in addition to other information such as bracing, uplift, number of similar trusses, face nailing etc. There will also be a plan location showing the position of each roof truss referenced accordingly. Manufactured beams, floor joists etc should also be part of this document. Changes from the engineering document, should be per approved engineering modifications, which should also be available.

This seems from the photograph to be a spec type home. You may find that other homes in the sub decision may have the documents in the permit boxes for those homes. At very least see how the other homes have been built as a comparison.

This detail may be fine, providing the sheathing, fastening and installation is correct per those drawings. I could not see the waviness to the rooflines from the photographs.

Regards


Michael

[Dan Bowers, CMI]

Trusses 24" O.C. are the norm.