VIDEO FRAMING YOUR SMOKEHOUSE ROOF*

The purpose of this video is to give you a close-up overview of the roof structure

and I'm going to talk about how it goes together and different tips for construction

This is essentially the way roofs were always framed in yesteryear before the advent of trusses

A truss is a kind of a pre-made triangle of framing material, and you put the triangles down, and then you cover the top of the top

of the triangles with more wood. With a rafter roof like this, each rafter, here's one here, here

here, they're pre-cut ahead of time. So they're cut with an angle at the top

and they're cut with this angled notch at the bottom that goes over the top of the wall

That's called the bird's mouth. In this case, to keep things simple

I've just left the ends of the rafters square. You could make a vertical cut here too

to finish it in a fancier way. So the vertical cut would match the vertical cut

of at the top end of the rafter. But this is essentially how it goes together

Rafters here. This would be the ridgeboard. And I'm calling these the ceiling joists

because they do form a kind of a ceiling, although you don't want to cover them

and create an actual ceiling in your smokehouse. But they're there for two reasons

First of all, they're there to bind the sides of the smokehouse together. So you can imagine there's downward pressure on any roof

and because the rafters are angled, that would translate into outward pressure against the walls

and the presence of the ceiling joists, anchored as they are to the rafters

creates a crosspiece, a bunch of cross pieces that hold the thing together. Now, you really don't

need all these cross pieces in a building this tiny one in the center which do fine but I recommending that you install them for each pair of rafters so that you have more surface area to hang hooks and nets and

all kinds of things from that you'd want to use in the smokehouse. So just fastened to the bottom

of the ceiling joists and you'll have a lot of utility that way. Now one other thing

just up front here, this hole would be present in all the rafters

And what I recommend as a premium construction option is to, instead of driving nails in at an angle

toe-nailing the rafters into the top of the wall, which is kind of standard practice and not very strong

I recommend an 8-inch spike driven down through the top of the rafter here

and then into the wall. as you'll see there's a wall directly underneath here

You pre-drill that hole, the hole for that spike, using a quarter-inch drill bit

These long spikes, these 8, 10, 12-inch spikes, they're about 3 eighths of an inch in diameter

So a quarter-inch diameter hole is perfect. It's just a little bit smaller. And the distance you're going to have to drill

is more than a regular drill bit too, which is maybe four inches long or so

So you want to get yourself what they call an installer's drill bit, a quarter inch. These installer bits are 16 inches long

something like that. They're made for people who install cables in buildings, and it's perfect

for making pilot holes for spikes in applications like this, and all kinds of buildings, too

Here you've got a closer up view of the rafter, and all the information you need in order to

cut the rafters So up at the top it a 30 degree angle And these angles could vary quite a bit but 30 degrees is a reasonable slope It looks nice but it not so steep that it hard to frame and to shingle So this is the end view of the ridgeboard and this is the angle

The really critical length here is from here, so the tip of the peak of the rafter

all the way down to this spot here. That's the back edge of the bird's mouth pocket

And that's the most critical dimension because the wall of the smokehouse will be here

Ideally, it should be right up against the back of this pocket

And the top should be up here, tight to the ridgeboard with no gap here

And there should be the same thing going on on the other side of the ridgeboard

So in order for all this to work out, you need to build the smokehouse the width that I've shown in the plans and then following these dimensions

And then as a final check, just cut two rafters at once, one pair, and then set them on the building and just see how they fit

Because there's complications here that make it easy for little gaps and ill-fitting zones to develop

So you'll want to check that before you cut all the rafters. Now, this figure here, the 8-inch figure, not too critical

That's just an overhang that I thought looked good in this application

You could make it longer, probably not a whole lot shorter because you want lots of shedding value from the roof

to protect the walls as far down as possible. But that's essentially how you cut a rafter for the smokehouse using 2x4 material

At this stage in construction, it's time to put the roofboards on

And as I explained before my recommendation is some one and a half inch thick construction grade lumber So 2x8s 2 by 10s probably If you can find 12s at a good price then you can use those two The thicker material hides roofing nails from showing through on the inside which would be ugly

And it's plenty strong. It's not going to be any more money than thinner sheathing-grade pine lumber, typically, at least where I live

So you're not paying a premium for it. most importantly, you're not using sheet materials, which I don't think have any place in a

smokehouse because of the ureafermaldohide glue, as well as the thin thickness that allows

all kinds of fasteners to show through. So one other bonus of the thick sheathing is that you can extend it beyond the last rafter

which are the last pair is here and here, and those are at the, in this case, the front edge

of the building, the front end. You can extend this thicker than usual sheathing to create an overhang at the front and the back

and it's self-supporting. It's thick enough that it can do that just fine

To make things look really nice, I recommend that you add a gable rafter just to cap the ends of those roofboards

There's no bird's mouth pocket because it just fastens to the ends of those thick roofboards

So nice and clean looking. It also extends the roof a little bit past the end of the roof boards

So when you put on your aluminum drip edge here and shingles or whatever you're going to put on the roof

you're well past the ends of the roofboards, which are vulnerable for rot because end grain always soaks up moisture

And if you just ended with the roofboards, even if you had your drip edge over it and everything

that would still get wet. the ends of the roofboards would get wet and it would promote rot and there's no excuse for that

So another reason to use the gable rafters here