What Is a Scissor Truss?

scissor truss has interconnecting triangular parts

A scissor truss is a very strong triangular-shaped roof framing component. Together with other trusses, a group of scissor trusses makes up a building’s roof rafters and ceiling framing. If you’re building a home, cabin, patio roof, or other structure, you may have encountered “scissor trusses” as an option for building the roof. “What is […]

Roof Framing Basics

Hip and valley roof framing with a gabled dormer, including rafters, tails, and ridge board.

An illustrated guide to roof construction, including basic types of roofs and a roofing glossary Drive through nearly any neighborhood and you can see that roofs have many different shapes. Houses have gable, hipped, mansard, gambrel, flat, and shed roofs. Many homes combine roof types on one roof. It’s quite common, for example, to see […]

Common Roofing Terms | An Illustrated Glossary

Hip and valley roof framing with a gabled dormer, including rafters, tails, and ridge board.

Roof framing involves a lexicon all its own. As you can see in the illustration below, roofs have hip rafters, ridge boards, jack rafters, and more. When working on a roof, it pays to be familiar with these terms. Here is a closer look at common roofing terms: Butt The exposed end of a shingle. […]