Irregular/Unequal Pitch Hip Roofs with Equal Overhangs
Unequal pitch hip roofs are more complicated to design and used today on larger homes where attic space is needed. Unequal pitch roofs are hard enough to design and when you add equal overhang you have really kicked it up a notch. To make the overhang come out equal to the regular pitch side which is usually the front and back hip you simply have to raise the irregular hip roof side to match. Problem is that this is not always an easy thing to figure out.
When you rotate the irregular hip rafter around all the measurements you would be given by your calculator will not be right. This will cause the jack rafters to be set out of square with the rest of the common rafters causing your plywood or sheathing cuts to be out of square also. This can be time consuming on the actual job site trying to re cut sheathing to fit the jack rafters properly.
Calculators simply will not take this into consideration as they are designed to function on a center point to point basis or from the actual corner itself allowing for no overhang at all. If you use this method then you will have to custom cut each peace of sheathing to fit your jack rafters or cut back on your overhang distance making the home out of proportion all together. Or measure for and custom cut every jack rafter which is time consuming to say the least.
Irregular Hip Figure #1
Figure #1 shows us the low slop side and sets the dimensions for the overhang elevation and the Ridge elevation which must be maintained.
Irregular Hip Figure #2
Figure #2 shows us how much to raise the irregular side to align the equal overhang. This is accomplished by simply raising the rafter seat by the required amount using whatever method you like. It can be accomplished by simply ripping small blocking to set the irregular rafter on. The ceiling joist is still located in the normal place maintaining proper ceiling height but should be extended out over the top wall plate so as to add needed strength to the roof system.
Irregular Hip Figure #3
Irregular Hip Figure #4
Irregular Hip Figure #5
Irregular Hip Figure #6
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