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Building your own trusses

atvjoel said:
There is no building officials outside city limits here. There is no county (Boroughs here) inspectors either, that's why there is state certified inspectors you can hire IF you choose to that are minimally qualified to inspect and verify you are building to minimum code standards. Alaska is wild west of building. Pretty much do whatever you want BUT if you ever want to sell your home under all financing options from a bank then you need the PUR-102 you get after final that you give to the bank so your buyer is not limited to one or limited financing options.

Alaska essentially, do whatever the heck you want, but if you ever want to appeal to broader buyer market then get it inspected so you can provide the inspection letter to the bank stating it has been built to minimum code standards. We do not have standard building officials.
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So who does the inspector you are talking to,,,

Answer to??? Who is his boss/// agency??
 
I think an inspector from alaska is still posting on the site

Might look at owner builder section:::,


Under penalty of perjury, by my signature below, I certify that the required inspections have been completed and to the best of my knowledge the building meets or exceeds standards set forth under AS 18.56.300 and 15 AAC 150.030 and that I qualify as an exemption under AS 08.18.161. If I am an owner-builder under AS 08.18.161(11), I further certify that I have not built a single family building, duplex, triplex, fourplex or commercial building within the prior two years.
 
cda said:
So who does the inspector you are talking to,,,

Answer to??? Who is his boss/// agency??
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They answer to no one other then renewing their license every 2 years. They are Licensed Inspectors with a letterhead that can provide you with the PUR-102.

I sent my inspector an email laying out that I would like to build my own trusses per specs that I was given by the truss designer at Spenard Builders Supply, and that i cant find anywhere in Code book that specifically states it has to be stamped and that the homeowner cant build the trusses, unless it is commercial or falls outside R301
 
What I am hearing is that outside of certain cities there is no building code that must be complied with. Because of this there can be no claims of protecting the public.

The role of these inspectors is to facilitate commercial transactions related to the sale of the building.
 
atvjoel said:
I can build them all for $110-$150 a piece depending which truss I will build as lumber just came way down but yet the Truss Plants have not reflected the drop because they want to pawn their overpriced lumber off on the consumer. They are charging me $333 a truss. Even if it ends up being more then what I calculated and ends up everything shoots up I am still saving 6k in a couple weeks worth of work. Thats 3k a week. After taxes at work i only take home after taxes 3k a week and have to be away from my family to do that.

I can lift them I did it in the past with 2x6 trusses on same width (uninspected) house I built but it was single story you couldnt do it two story. You flip them upside down, get one side up, flip it on its side, slide it over with one guy holding the other end, the other guy lifts up on other wall, you lide it over, then one guy gets in the middle to hold it while other guy blocks. It wouldnt work on a wider home then I am building but it will work on my place.

I am reading through code Its a little convoluted. My inspector said they had to be engineered, but as i mentioned in previous message "engineering" is loose word. We have engineers at this Mine I work at that design blast patterns, none of which are actually licensed in this state.

This article says this and I am trying to verify if its wrong. Spenard Builders Supply said the trusses are not required to have a stamp. They already provided me with all the specs

People on here I much appreciate their advice but can someone call out this article and say its wrong Note that under the IRC, both the residence and the wood Truss design could be performed by persons who are not Registered Design Professionals. There may be times when the Building Official will require the Truss Design Drawings to be prepared and stamped by a Registered Design Professional even though the structure was not. The key to this IRC provision is that if the jurisdiction requires the Construction Documents to be prepared by a Registered Design Professional, then the Truss Design Drawings shall also be prepared by a Registered Design Professional. https://www.structuremag.org/?p=14283
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If your weekly take home pay is $3000.00 you are tripping over dollars to pick up pennies.
 
Mark K said:
Was the design provided by the building supply company stamped and sealed by a registered engineer. If not the building supply company may be practicing engineering without a license. Has the engineer who stamped the truss design recognized that the design you have is appropriate for your project.
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In my experience, the truss manufacturer usually provides the un-sealed design until the client pays. Once payment is received, the manufacturer sends the design to their engineer for review and stamps.

I want to be very clear, it is very common to see changes to the preliminary design after the engineer performs their review. We do not even look at preliminary truss plans. They get changed so often that it is a waste of time. I would not build with those drawings unless an engineer stamped it.

You are saying that getting them to build it is not work 6000$. I would say 6,000$ is not worth risking my family's life over.
 
atvjoel said:
There is no building officials outside city limits here. There is no county (Boroughs here) inspectors either, that's why there is state certified inspectors you can hire IF you choose to that are minimally qualified to inspect and verify you are building to minimum code standards. Alaska is wild west of building. Pretty much do whatever you want BUT if you ever want to sell your home under all financing options from a bank then you need the PUR-102 you get after final that you give to the bank so your buyer is not limited to one or limited financing options.

Alaska essentially, do whatever the heck you want, but if you ever want to appeal to broader buyer market then get it inspected so you can provide the inspection letter to the bank stating it has been built to minimum code standards. We do not have standard building officials.
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Well, that part of Alaska got what it asked for, allowing the mortgage companies to determine standards. Since you want to save money, I assume that take into consideration building an adjustable, full size jig needed to ensure each truss is exactly per specs. Your questions are best answered by the PUR-102 inspectors as it is obvious that per the IBC and most every other standard around the world, wood trusses are required to be engineered.

I assume you are going to make your own concrete and CMU too in order to save money? If you are going to build your own engineered trusses I assume you are going to build the entire house by itself to save money. You may be able to build your own trusses but you still need that PUR-102 and that requires review of the truss design and stamp along with inspections during construction so you still have to get an inspector to sign off on it, you can't just do what you think you can and expect an inspector to approve it so there is the gamble right there.

Are the delays in your project worth the money you are saving or think you are saving? Do you have the space needed to keep the moisture content down own the wood and build and store the wood trusses? Is your method of gusset attachment acceptable to the engineer that will sign off of this? Did you get a price from the engineer for his/her services from beginning to completion? What is the roof snow load for your area?
 
As the article stated, whether or not the trusses and truss plan and details have to be sealed by an RDP is up to the jurisdiction. In this case, it seems the state is the jurisdiction. The state does not require permitting and inspection but if you want it for future loans, the state will inspect. Somewhere there must be a record of the state's choice to require or not sealed plans for the trusses.

first:


And I can't find if AHFC required an RDP for R810 or not. Hopefully your inquiry will get you an answer.
 
This is some strange stuff.
It would be interesting where you find machine grade lumber used for building trusses or even No 1 grade specified lumber species.

In our state their is a gap allowance and the truss manufactures have to met the gap sheets, apparently that's not required either.

Does the hire engineer specialized in truss inspections? or is the engineer just verifying loads and attachments? Just curious.
 
No one seems to have said this so far, so...

You cannot use the engineered truss design prepared by a supplier to make your own trusses. The design prepared and given to you as a part of a quote is still their property. It has only been provided to you as a tool for completing your design and for review purposes. No warranty or standard-of-care is granted or implied with these "draft" documents.

If you use them as your design basis, I would argue that the truss designer would have no responsibility, even if they were stamped by a PE. Their design belongs to them, and if manufactured by yourself, or even another truss company, it would be an act of theft against their intellectual property.

If you want to site build the trusses, hire an engineer and have them provide you a design that includes plywood gussets as suggested by others. Although, if I were to bet, the supposed savings you are striving for would be lost on the cost of the engineer, your time, etc.

Save yourself the headache and buy the trusses or follow conventional framing methods (rafters and joists).
 

atvjoel,​

Experience is a good teacher.​

We all like to learn from others on this forum.​

You can either follow the suggestions given here to buy engineered trusses or stick frame it as per the building code, or do what you like... But, Please share how it turns out and what you learn.​

​

.​

 
The truss software determines the joint gusset plates to be used, I assume it's not that hard for an engineer with pen and paper to design the plywood gusset plates and the amount and type of fasteners to be used?
 
Pcinspector1 reminds me iirc that every piece of lumber in a truss is MSR because visual inspection is not accurate enough for these highly engineered assemblies. Just because a drawing from a truss fabricator says no. 2 SPF, does not mean all no. 2 SPF is strong enough. Pretty sure that the fabricator will MSR each piece to be sure defects not visually detectable and usually OK in say a stud, but potentially catastrophic in a truss, are found and rejected.
 
The truss plates also have to have certain "bite" and clearances from ends & edges of members to achieve the strengths that the calculations were based on. There are also limits on the gaps between members where they join. This information doesn't show up on the truss shop drawings. Your trusses might not be strong enough if you don't put each plate in exactly the location required by the design standard. Part of the manfacturer's quality control is verifying plate locations and whether too many teeth got flattened when the plates were pressed on. Trusses also require the proper bracing to assure they can't be knocked over like a row of dominoes.

Stick framing is a lot easier and more forgiving, and the code has prescriptive standards.
 
2SPF means that it is not MSR. MSR lumber has a different grading designation
 
Some added info:
From SBAC (Structural Building Components Assoc.) Structural framing grades like Select Structural, No. 1, No. 2, No. 3, MSR and MEL are all used in trusses. It is important to make sure that the proper lumber size, species and grade chosen in the truss design program will be used in production because selecting that information in the truss design software allows the program to pull lumber and plate strength. If the species and grade used is not included in the program’s lumber file, it may mean that the plate manufacturing company does not have data on plate strength values in that particular type of lumber. At that point, contact the plate manufacturer for more information.
 
I suggest using a directly supported beam for your ridge board and using cut rafters. If your ridge board is designed as a beam, you don't need collar ties or ceiling joists per R802.3, and you can still get a vaulted ceiling in there (if that's your style).

Way easier than building trusses, the only downside might be the cost of the beam itself.
 
bill1952 said:
Pcinspector1 reminds me iirc that every piece of lumber in a truss is MSR because visual inspection is not accurate enough for these highly engineered assemblies. Just because a drawing from a truss fabricator says no. 2 SPF, does not mean all no. 2 SPF is strong enough. Pretty sure that the fabricator will MSR each piece to be sure defects not visually detectable and usually OK in say a stud, but potentially catastrophic in a truss, are found and rejected.
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Quite the opposite. Trusses are designed to MINIMIZE the use of MSR. MSR is expensive, engineers attempt to design the most efficient structure. Using a higher grade than necessary is not efficient use of materials. They do sometimes substitute higher grades depending on what stock they have on hand.

To the OP: This scheme seems penny wise and pound foolish. Build a press for the plates?? Good luck keeping the geometry consistent. Sounds like a nightmare to assemble on the structure with the lack of tolerance you'll be able to achieve for hand built trusses.
But good luck buddy!
 
steveray said:
A 24' wide roof does not seem that hard to build without engineered trusses....? Am I missing something?
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Hard and trying to deal with inspector is two different things. I just decided to buy the trusses because my inspector refused to accept non "engineered" truss. The frustrating thing is that home built doesnt mean its not engineered.
 
redeyedfly said:
Quite the opposite. Trusses are designed to MINIMIZE the use of MSR. MSR is expensive, engineers attempt to design the most efficient structure. Using a higher grade than necessary is not efficient use of materials. They do sometimes substitute higher grades depending on what stock they have on hand.

To the OP: This scheme seems penny wise and pound foolish. Build a press for the plates?? Good luck keeping the geometry consistent. Sounds like a nightmare to assemble on the structure with the lack of tolerance you'll be able to achieve for hand built trusses.
But good luck buddy!
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Little smuggy response in my opinion with all due respect. Basic Welding and school of hard knocks school and you could easily fabricate a 20 ton plate press which his what the factory uses. I have monster compressor I would use air. I went with engineered, prefabed, and stamped trusses the other day and sopend the money, extra 6-7k because my inspector said he needed stamped design, which doesnt coincide with what I read in code book, but im not a wizard and literally no one on this forum could say yes or no without opinion involved. I researched code and said basically you need engineering calcs and not a stamp unless you are exceeding certain criteria. R301.
Great forum here and maybe I can provide value here in the future.
 
classicT said:
No one seems to have said this so far, so...

You cannot use the engineered truss design prepared by a supplier to make your own trusses. The design prepared and given to you as a part of a quote is still their property. It has only been provided to you as a tool for completing your design and for review purposes. No warranty or standard-of-care is granted or implied with these "draft" documents.

If you use them as your design basis, I would argue that the truss designer would have no responsibility, even if they were stamped by a PE. Their design belongs to them, and if manufactured by yourself, or even another truss company, it would be an act of theft against their intellectual property.

If you want to site build the trusses, hire an engineer and have them provide you a design that includes plywood gussets as suggested by others. Although, if I were to bet, the supposed savings you are striving for would be lost on the cost of the engineer, your time, etc.

Save yourself the headache and buy the trusses or follow conventional framing methods (rafters and joists).
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First and foremost i pulled the trigger and just paid the extra 7k on them the other day because Im confused on the language in residential code. They stamped the EXACT design they sent me with structural P.E at no charge. Second, My argument is IF you have the calcs would code restrict xxxx. Again you are bringing in opinion.

"Site bulding trusses" I get the bias if you are building big huge house but good grief. I am a tiny ranch style duplex with 2' footings 10" thick 3 channels of rebar, vertical rebar with "hooks". This is not a code remark but I built multiple houses with "site built trusses" and mine are beefier then the local truss plant, and the houses withstood record snowfall.
 
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