Truss Types

You've been sitting down with your potential house plans and are trying to decide if framing your roof by hand is better than ordering trusses for your house. Building your own stick-framed roof could save you some time and money. But, the more complicated your roof lines the greater the chance is that you'll need to hire a professional framer to do your roof.

So maybe trusses, whether self-built or ordered from a building supply store, may be a better answer. Truss types can be built in just about any configuration. Taking your plans to a home building supply store that specializes in building truss types will quickly tell you if doing pre-build trusses for your house is feasible.

Here are the more common truss types available:

Picture courtesy of DIY Doctor, a great building resource for UK residents.





Three varieties of room-in-attic trusses. This is a screen shot of designs I found
at Google 3D Warehouse, drawings by Ross Eubanks. You can even download
the design yourself and play around with it in Google Sketchup.