Today I saw this truss, which is a 1/2 truss and resembles a right triangle, that I think may not be anchorded properly. The bottom, ceiling rafter, of this truss spans about 30 feet; and, at the right angle corner (center of the structure) is a steel joist hanger where the truss rests against the beam.
The problem is that the steel hanger is not nailed to the truss but it is nicely nailed to the beam. Of course, if this were the end of the story we know we have a problem. Whats makes this a bit unique is that the end of the truss was ‘toe-nailed’ to the beam. Because the sides of the hanger covers some of the truss I cannot determine if adequate nailing was achieved. To be nailed adequately the joist hangers would have to have been an after thought. What would you recommend?
I do not have a picture of the area but the Link is exactly what I am talking about. I’ll have to dust off my engineers cap (think cap) because I am not sure that the answer is there. Reason is that the truss end was toe-nailed to the support. I do know that when these hanger are used that every hole is supposed to be filled with a nail - but that is with the assumption that the member was not toe-nailed.
When carpenters install trusses they often sink a couple of toenails to hold the truss(es) temporarily in place and later send a kid back to install all the hangers while the guys who make more money go on to work that requires more skill. For that reason it’s not unusual to see toenails in trusses attached to beams and girders with hangers. The toenails are not structural and were installed only for convenience.
The hangers are designed to carry the roof load and the nails holding the hangers to the beam are part of the load path from the roof to the foundation.
The nails through the side of the hanger into the truss are there to prevent uplift or to prevent lateral movement from pulling the truss out of the hanger. Sometimes they get forgotten or blown off. The carpenter’s thinking goes like this… the trusses are nailed and clipped to the outside wall, nailed down through the roof sheathing with hundreds of nails and trusses often have horizontal and diagonal bracing and blocking in place. If a hurricane or tornado or earthquake or wind or whatever rips out all those nails and braces, eight nails through the hanger ain’t savin’ that baby anyway.
The lack of nails through the side of the hanger into the truss is a defect and should be called.
Check out the nails used to fasten hangers to beams on sloppily-built homes like these. I’ve found aluminum siding nails which are 40% of the proper diameter and a much weaker metal alloy. Hangers should be nailed with teco (10d) nails or 16d framing nails. You can spot those nails because they have thick heads. Just like…
Your response is what I was hoping to hear - I had guessed that the toe-nail was a rough-in but did not want to go with just a guess. Thanks so much for the information!
