How to frame a regular hip roof, Step-by-step instructions.

hey folks today we're going to show you how to frame a regular hip roof now in our earlier video we showed you a basic gable roof and if you're completely new to roof framing you probably want to watch that video first it'll give you a good perspective on the principles of pitch run and Rise that you need to understand roof framing now there's a lot of overlap between framing a gable roof and a hip roof and I'm not going to cover all of that again today hip roofs are not hard but you do need to understand Gables first okay let's get started on the model behind me we're going to illustrate the framing of a hip roof but to help us make this clear we're going to use the drawings and examples from ru framer's Bible I wrote this book several years ago and there's a lot of good info that will help us make this clear however the examples in the book are for much larger structure than our model here so we're going to use the model for visual illustration but use the larger Dimensions from the examples in the book so what is a hip roof it's a roof that slopes in all directions like a pyramid so to set the table to get started let's take a look at this drawing this drawing shows a hip roof and as you recall a hip is like a pyramid in that it slopes on all sides now on this particular roof it's also a regular hip roof which means that it has the same roof pitch on all of these sides now this drawing is showing the common rafters highlighted in blue and on a regular hip roof since it has the same pitch all the way around these common Raptors will all be the same length so these here along the Ridge and also this one on the end of the ridge will be exactly the same length now the common that hits on the end of the ridge is called a king common but is exactly the same Rapter same Cuts same rafter length everything all right uh what else do we have here we have Valley Rafters here in the bottom we have hip Rafters and we have Jack Rafters now you have hip Jacks which are rafters that run from the wall to the hip here we have a valley Jack which is a rafter that runs from the ridge to a valley but most of the time we just call them Jack Rafters we don't differentiate between them now one thing you want to understand about a regular hip roof is that these hips and valleys always run on a 45 degree angle in in plan View and you'll notice that the Jack Rafters are directly opposed to each other on each side of this hip rafter and that's because these are exactly the same length since they have the same pitch here and here it yields ra of the same length now they'll have opposite angles on them you'll have a a left Jack and a right jack but the rafters themselves overall have the same length so that's one of the characteristics of a regular IP roof okay here on this model we've got common Rapters on each side of the Ridge and we also have this one so if we set it right here at the end of The Ridge this is called the king common it's the common rafter that hits right on the end of The Ridge and this is exactly the same as the other Commons same rafter link same run as we can see if we put it over here so these Rafters are interchangeable all the commons are alike so to see how that works let's take a look at this drawing all right here we have a plan view drawing of a regular hip and of course plan view means that you're looking straight down on it from above now what is regular hip it's a hip roof that has the same pitch all the way around so we've got these four red arrows here that indicate that this roof is sloping down at an 812 pitch all the way around the roof now when you have the same pitch it's always going to result in the common rafters being the same length now on this drawing we have highlighted the principal common rafters in blue to make this clear and as you remember when we're doing a common rafter layout we would always deduct 1/ half of the ridge thickness from the common rafter run and you can see over here that that's the case this 12T 11 and a quarter has had the 3/4 of an inch deducted for half the thickness of the ridge from this common rafter run and you can see the run here is exactly the same as the run on this side and that forms a square right here just a straight square and since the hip rafter runs on a diagonal across that square it will always be on a 45 degree angle and that's one of the key characteristics of a regular hip that the hips and valleys will always run on a 45° angle so you see the Jack Rafters that are shown on the front of this drawing the ends of these will always be cut on a 45 degree miter now another key characteristic is that the ridge length on a regular hip will always be equivalent to the length of the house minus the depth of the house plus the thickness of the Ridge and you say well why is that well it's Common Sense really because the common Raptor here and here form the depth of the house and they're exactly the same as the length of the king common here and here and of course the adding the thickness of the ridge is adding back that 3/4 of an inch that was deducted when we did our common rafter layout so to recap the key characteristics of a regular hip are that the common rafters will be the same length the hips and valleys will run on a 45 degree angle and the length of the ridge will always be equivalent to the length of the house minus the depth of the house plus the thickness of the ridge which in our case here is six foot one and a half inches now I would note that the common rafter run here is indicated going to the end of the rafter tail and I really would recommend that you get in the habit of doing that and that's particularly true on an irregular or bastard hip roof because it'll help avoid a lot of confusion so these common runs in this drawing are figured to the end of the overhang and of course that tells us how far to pull back for the end of our Ridge when we're doing our common and Jack rafter layout so the common runs are the same and the hip rafter will run from the wall corner right up to the Ridge and to show this clearly let's take a look at this plan view drawing okay here's an enlarged view of that same drawing and we need to talk about hip pitch because it's different than the common rafters and we need to explain why so on this drawing we've got from the outside of the wall to the center of the hip a common run of 12 in and it's the same on the this side and indeed on any equal pitch hip roof they will be the same size so it forms a little square so here's an enlarged version of that square and we can see that the common run runs 12 in here and 12 in this way but the hip rafter has to run down here on a diagonal and that's longer so a square of 12 in x 12 in actually measures 16.97% and so since that hip has to run a longer distance as opposed to the common rafter that's going to change the pitch of the hip rafter and we'll explain a little better on the next drawing okay we have that same drawing showing here with the common run of 12 in and the hip run of 17 in and this drawing here will help clearly illustrate that all right so the the common 812 here is running 12 in run this way and Rising 8 in so that sets the ridge height so the the hip have to has to match that so it's it's rising the same 8 in but it's doing it in a much longer length of 17 in so that clearly illustrates how this uh hip pitch is a flatter pitch it's an 817 as opposed to an 812 for the common rafter okay we're here on the page for the 812 pitch roof so to get our Raptor links we're going to go to run in feet we're going to go down here to 12 feet so our common rafter length is 173 and8 so for our inches of run which was 11 and a quarter we'll go over on the opposite page run in inches and we'll go down to 11 and a quarter we see that that's a common length of 13 and a half so if we add those two together from inches of run and feet of run we get 186 and 5/8 for a total common raor length so in same fashion for the hip rafter we'll go to 12T of run and go across here and then we'll go inches of run down here all the way over here and get 17 and 5/8 for inches of run we add the two together and that will give us our total hip rafter length now an alternative way is to use this factor chart right here and we can simply take our common rafter run which at 12T 11 and a/4 in if we convert it all to inches is 155 and a/4 Ines and and we multiply that times 1.22 and it'll give us our common rafter length in the same fashion we can take our same 15 155 and a quarter of common rafter run times 1.5 63 and it will give us our hip Valley rafter length now we also have all the other information we need we've got first Jack deduction and Jack difference both for 16 on Center space Jack Rafters and 24 on Center we've got our hip pitch hip drop hip backing bevels all of our cuts square cut rafter tails and also sheathing Cuts these are very helpful for cutting our roof decking uh very quickly and accurately so a lot of good information all right here on page 48 of roof framer's Bible okay we cut our common rafters and we set them we've got the last common rafter here going right to the Ridge and the King common going to end the Ridge and the hip rafter will run right across the corner of the wall right up there to the ridge so you can see how the hip rafter is set how these Jack Rafters are set and we're going to show you how to all the steps of cutting this hip rafter but first I want to point out something you know on on Gable roofs it's common to figure your rafter lengths from the hap or here at the outside of the wall but there are a lot of good reasons that we should figure from the end of the overhang now you know this is especially true for bastard hip roofs because you've got different pitches different plate Heights it's very much uh in your interest to figure from the end of the rafter tail but even on a regular hip uh it's good to get in the habit of doing so sometimes you may have brick veneer on on one side of the house and not on the other and it just makes it easier to figure from the end of the tail you know you've got a a pyramid basically you've got a slope on this side and a slope on this side and the base of the pyramid is this fascia Point that's the common line that goes around the building so it's very advantageous to figure to the facial Point rather than the half let's get in the habit of doing that and that's the way these uh illustrations are going to be given okay let's lay out this hip rafter here and it's an 817 so we want to lay our framing square on here like this and we'll go at eight here and a 17 over here and that gives the plum cut of our hip raft so we just want to mark that and now all we need to do we need to to Mark the double cheek cut we need to and here this is an inch and a half wide on the tongue of our Square we can just Mark that and that will give us two marks inch and a half apart to cut our cheek Cuts we'll set our saw on a 45 degree angle and we'll cut it this way first and then this way afterward and that'll give us a double cheek [Applause] [Music] cut [Applause] and see now you can see that that's got our double cheek cut right there ready to go for our hip rafter okay we've got our hip rafter here we need to lay it out so we just hook the end of the double cheek cut right on the end pull down along the top of the rafter and we'll pull all the way down to the end of the tail and make a mark all right we've marked our rafter length to the end of the hip Tail as you recall we're going to figure all our rafter lengths from the end of the tail rather than the half so we're going to throw a frame Square on here and remember the hip pitch is an 817 so we're going to put an eight here and a 17 over here and Mark our Plum cut this is the plum cut on the end of our hip tail and we need to Bob off the bottom you remember for the 1x6 fascia we want 4 in so we're going to throw a framing square on here going to align it with our Plum cut come down 4 inches from top of the rafter and Mark it to Bob off the end of our tail all right we figured our rafter length here to the end of the tail and we need to put our Bird's mouth on there so we'll lay that back out from the end of the tail so since we've got a common rafter run of 12 inches and the hip runs on a 45 degree angle that means the horizontal run of our hip R tail is going to be 17 in so we simply place the frame of square 17 at top edge of the rafter eight at the top edge of the rafter and we can Mark our Plum cut and that will be our hap and position of our Bird's mouth okay the next thing we got to do is cut the bird's mouth for our hip rafter now since this is a regular hip roof and these Rafters are going to plane out across the wall our actual ha is going to be the same on the hip rafter as it is on the common rafter so our H from the top of rafter down if we measure that is 4 and A4 Ines and we will have the same ha on the hip rafter now we need to Mark the level cut of our hip rafter Bird's mouth now as you remember our common rafter had a half of four and a quarter inches and since this hip rafter being a regular hip is going to run right across the corner of the wall the hap on it will also be 4 and A4 inches so we FP simply flip our frame and square around here and we'll align the square perfectly with this Plum line four and a quarter inches at the top edge of the rafter and we can we can mark the seat cut here and now we've got the birge mou for our hip [Applause] RoR [Applause] [Music] now we place that hip and you notice the double cheek cut on the end of the tail we place that hip and it goes right up there to the top of the ridge here at the top of the hip the center line of the hip or the tip of the hip is right here flush with the corner of the ridge but you'll notice that it's not flush with a common so you see where the shoulder of this hip is sticking up higher than the common rafter so in order to get that to plane out we would need to rip or back the top of this hip from here back to the center line of the hip so that would PL out for our roof decking okay since the shoulder of this hip is sticking up too high we could rip a bevel here from 38 down back to the center of the hip with our backing angle on it or as an alternative we could simply cut out right here along the seat cut of the bird's mouth the same 38 of an inch and just allow the entire rafter to drop straight down and that would put this shoulder right down here at the line where we need it to for the jack rafs to plane out so we can do it that way or we can back the hip which we'll show you in just a second okay let's take a look at hip rafter backing and cheek Cuts now as you recall the hip and Valley Rafters will always be running on a 45 degree angle that is for a regular pitch hip and the center of that hip will be the intersecting point of the roof plane on one side and the roof plane on the other so if we were to align this Center Line of the hip Raptor right to the ridge it would result in the shoulders of the hip meaning this corner of the hip right here of actually being too high because the Jack rafter here is coming up and remember it's going to uh intersect with the center of the hip and so this corner actually needs to be ripped off and show this bevel so for on the 812 roof we're doing that would be a 23 degree bevel that you would rip from the center ey of the hip down and that would cause the Jack Rafters to intersect with this line right here and uh with the center line of the hip now in real uh you almost never do this an alternative to ripping a hip backing bevel is to Simply drop the hip and so if uh this shoulder right here is too high you can simply cut the bird's mouth a little deeper and then just drop the entire hip down by the Mount of the hip drop and that would put this corner of the ridge or the hip rather right in line with the Jack Rafters and eliminate the need to rip these backing bevels okay let's take a look at the cuts on the end of the hip rafter now the end of this hip is going to jam up into the corner formed by the king common and the first Common on the side and so it would need to look like this this is looking straight down on the top of that end of the hip and uh the hip is inch and a half thick or wide and so these are going to be a cut on a 45 because we are dealing with a regular pitch hip and so half of that distance would be 3/4 of an inch and that would be our cheek cut we would cut a bevel on the end of this hip rapor 45 on this side and a 45 on this side so this number right here if you pulled back on the horizontal would be 3/4 of an inch so those are the cuts for a hip rafter and we'll uh go over the hip drop a little more in another drawing here's another drawing of it you'll see how the top edge of this hip rafter if we were to bring the hip rafter to square on the top like this and put it at the top of the ridge it would be too high the Jack wrap after running up here on this side of the hip planing out with the center of the hip would make these shoulders stick up high so we could cut that 23° bevel on there if we wanted to as shown in the earlier drawing or we can simply drop the hip and for this 812 pitch it'd be 38 of an inch we could drop it down so now the hip rafter is here and so the Jack rafter is playing out nicely with the corners of the hip and you can see that over here we we laid out this hip rafter and of course you can see on the framing square how you mark that as an 8817 to get a level cut and a plum cut for the hip rafter and you would lay this out just like you would the common rafter and this uh seat cut height here or as some people call it the hap which is height above plate that is going to be the same as the common rafter on each side not including the hip drop and that of course that would be to the center of this hip so to overcome the problem with the shoulders of the hip being too high right here we simply take the same 38 in Hip drop and we cut the top of this bird's mouth just a little bit deeper and that allows this entire hip raor just to drop straight down and that brings the corner of the hip right down in line and so the decking would still run up here and peek out but the top of the hip would be right here and so that shows you very clearly how you do the hip drop you see how the tip of the hip is dropped down and now these shoulders here on each side are flush with the commons so by cutting 38 of an inch out of our seat cut of the bird's mouth we simply drop the rafter down and now these shoulders are fine and this is done in lie of backing the rafter okay now we've backed the hip rafter so you see how the shoulders are now beveled down so the tip of the hip is right at the Ridge and then each side is right down flush with the common rafters see how that planes out that backing angle just right so the decking will plan across the hip the next step is to get our Jack rafter lengths and we'll show that clearly in this next drawing okay let's talk about how we get Jack rafter lengths now we're showing here figures 12 and 13 of roof framer's Bible and that's Pages 18 and 19 and it's showing how to get our various Jack rafter links so if we begin here with our common rafter and we've already calculated that length and it's 186 and 58 so we begin with this common rter and it's Square on the end so to get the Long Point of our first Jack for this 812 roof we want to deduct 18 and 3/4 of an inch and that puts us down here at the Long Point of the first Jack now if we want to get to the second Jack we're going to deduct the Jack difference which is 19 and 1/4 inches and that will put us down here at the Long Point of the second Jack now I want to point out that this is not a run number this is an actual rafter length number that's measured along the top of this Jack rafter so we would continue to use this Jack difference to get all of the Jack rafter lengths as we go down the hip now you say well why is the first Jack deduction different than the Jack difference and the reason is this if you projected a line along the edge of this hip rafter straight up here you would notice that it does not intersect the corner of that common because the common rafter is square is not going to be the same as it is from Jack to Jack okay here's a close-up view to illustrate why the first Jack deduction is different than the Jack difference now as you can see here the center of this hip is always going to run right up here to the corner of the ridge but the side of the hip right here if we projected a line up here you see that it's not intersecting uh with the common so since we're are going from these Square ended common it's going to be a different deduction to get to the first Jack than if we were going to this point up here so roof framer Bible will give you that first Jack deduction and that goes from the actual common rafter length here down to your first Jack and then for all the rest of the Jacks you'll use the Jack difference to to get all of their lengths now people don't realize it but they're using construction master and they're typically they're putting their common run here to the side of the Ridge and so Construction Master is giving them the correct length for this common rafter however when they then hit the Jack key it's giving them a value that is not the correct length of the first Jack since the construction master is actually doing it on the standard Jack difference as if it were going to this point up here and so since their first Jack is the wrong length and all the rest of their jacks are based off of that that means all their Jacks Are the wrong length and so people doing it all the time and don't even realize it of course you know it does affect things the Jacks are running out of square because they're the wrong length and uh it can affect the uh breaking of your decking your little rapor Tails especially down on your short Jacks will be skewed out of square and um so they're fighting that and they don't realize the origin of it is the way that construction master gives a jack uh calculation but since roof framer's Bible makes allowance for that and gives you the first Jack deduction from the square common and then a jack difference from all the rest of them they fit beautifully it's amazing how well everything works out when you've got the true and correct links for everything okay let's get our uh Jack rafter links so here we are on page 48 of roof framer's Bible and it's got all the information we need to get our Jack rafter lengths both for 16inch on Center Rafters and for 24 in on Center so to get our first Jack we want to use the first Jack deduction so coming from the square ended common rafter we want to subtract 18 and 3/4 in and that will give us the Long Point of the first Jack rafter and that's the significance of this LP shown here now for the rest of the Jacks we're going to subtract 19.23 in for each Jack and rounded to the nearest eighth that's 19 and 1/4 in now if you've got a long hip and a big string of Jack Rafters you always want to use this decimal number because use of the rounded number would result in a cumulative error by the time you got down through a long string of jacks now we got the same thing for the 24 inch on Center we would deduct for first Jack deduction 28 and 38 and then for the Jack difference from there on we'd use 28.8 in now also so the roof framers Bible will give you a jack rafter length per inch of layout and we'll show you how to use that in a minute but this is very useful for when you need to make changes to the layout of your jack Rafters you can quickly alter the Jack rafter length to account for moving it along the layout and we'll show you that in a bit okay let's look at the other end of the ridge you know it's common practice for framers to put two Commons flush with the end of the ridge on this end and then to do the same on this end of the ridge so if our dotted line here is showing uh Commons set that way then the uh difference from the common rafter down to the first Jack would be exactly the same as the first end of the ridge here and we see that's 167 and 78 for our first Jack and that matches the first Jack on this side now one of the advantages of putting common rafters flush with the end is that it give us gives us matched sets of jacks so the jacks on this side will be exactly the same as the Jacks over here now the downside of that is that you're breaking the 16 on Center layout as you come across when you cross the end of The Ridge and of course when you're decking the roof if you take an 8ft sheet and you start out uh in the center of one of these Rafters they're not going to break on the Rafters on this end of the ridge so that's a problem and some people don't want to do that so if you want to keep your Commons 16 on Center all the way across you can easily do that now if you did that in our example here this last common rafter would be 6 in back from the end of the ridge so we've got to adjust the Jack rafter length that would have been here that is now here now roof framer's Bible gives us a calculation of 1.22 in per inch of layout now this is for the 812 roof it would give that calculation for all the different pitches so we simply take the 6 in and we multiply it times the 1.22 in and it tells us that this Jack rafter is going to get longer by seven and a quarter inches that's to move it to its new position uh to be on Center layout with this other one so now we have a first Jack dimension on this side of 175 and an eth now to get from it down to the second Jack on this side we simply do the same Jack difference deduction of 19 and a quter and that gives us our second Jack length and we'll continue to make that same Jack difference deduction all the way down the hip until we've got all of our Jack Rafters so that's a quick and easy way to get all of our Jack rafter links uh regardless if we're keeping Commons flush with the end of the ridge or if we're maintaining our 16 on Center layout across the entire roof okay now we got our common rafter over here we need to lay out our Jacks so buding it we're going to Mark 16 and 32 for our 16 on Center Jack Rafters and we're ready to set are Jacks okay the Jacks are all set you can see the Eevees line up beautifully the overhangs all perfectly aligned and as you come pan around here you can see that the Jack Rafters are opposing straight up the hip so they look really nice okay we're ready to deck this roof and if we're going to put a full sheet on here we need to know what angle to cut on it where it runs up along this hip Raptor now normally you would be dependent on somebody up on the house to give you those Dimensions but roof ramer's Bible makes this really easy we know exactly what those angles are going to be you know if we had a common raor and we could pull either a Long Point or a short point we can quickly get the correct angle or if we've got a roof that has a hip running down here and it turns the corner and very quickly breaks up a valley rafter we don't have a square corner to pull from but no worries because roof framer's Bible tells us exactly what those angles are so we've got a couple drawings in roof framer's Bible is going to show you exactly how it gives us all of the needed dimensions and angles to cut this roof sheating let's talk about sheathing Cuts we're been looking at an 812 hip roof and we're ready to put the sheathing on the roof so if we come up here and this sheet is coming over to this hip Raptor we have to know what this angle is to cut our sheathing to fit the line of the hip rafter now we could get the guy up on the roof to give us a a short point and then a Long Point Dimension and we can use it to cut this angle the problem is uh what is he pulling from he may be pulling from a common rafter that's got a a bow in it or whatever and so he could be giving us an incorrect Dimension so the nice thing with roof framer Bible it's got all of these angles for sheathing Cuts all pre-calculated for all the various roof pitches so if the guy on the roof will give you either a short Point Dimension or a Long Point Dimension you can down on your saw horses you can throw a four bit sheet up on there and you pull over from your Long Point uh 39 and 78 and that will give you this exact angle to fit the hip rafter now what if you're in a tight Corner let's say a roof comes around from a hip and then it shortly turns the corner it's straight into a valley and you don't have any square corners to pull off of well in that case we also have it as a framing square uh cut Dimension so if you throw a framing square up on there 9 and 78 over here on the tongue and 12 Ines on the body of the square and it will give you that exact same angle so regardless of whether we've got a big sheet or a small piece by either of these methods we can get an exact angle for this hip sheet now of course that presumes that your hip is all in the correct location and everything but uh if you've done your job well and your common and hips are properly placed you can use this to cut your sheathing and it'll fit like a glove it'll just go right exactly down the hip line it'll all be uh very accurate okay that finishes our video on Regular pitch hip roofs now it wasn't so hard was it if you take it piece by piece and if you found it helpful today please hit the Subscribe button below so you don't miss any of our future videos and the next time we're going to show you how to build a irregular pit ship roof some people call those bastard roofs now those are a whole lot more complicated but with roof framers Bible you can Master those as well so thanks for watching today and keep on framing

Channel: RoofFramersBible

Views: 109,283

Keywords: hip roof, roof framing, rafters, carpenter, speed square, framing square, framing, common rafter, hip rafter, birdsmouth, roofcutting

Id: _ExIlng874U

Length: 32min 44sec (1964 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 14 2023