Framing Roofs Best of Fine Homebuilding :: Education by Design Store

Customer Reviews

no basics

2003-08-28
Many of the chapters in this book are written by individual carpenters who "do things their own way". For instance, in the first chapter, the writer says to disregard previous techniques and use his method. In the 2nd and 3rd chapters, the writer talks about using power tools that are either outrageously expensive or not even avilable any more. Further, there is no discussion or summary of basic roof geometry and calculations. The tag phrase "for pros by pros" is quite misleading. It is merely 15 chapters of guys telling how THEY frame a roof. Anyone, even pro carpenters using this as a refresher, should start off with a tutorial on basic roof geometry, design, and construction methods. If you are looking for info on how to properly design and construct roof framing, don't waste your money on this one!

Good reference for stick roofs

2003-04-23
In recent years, the roof has become the focal point of many NA homes. No longer content with simple styles, rangy, monstrous roofs are the norm. Additionally many of them are likely to be built with either trusses, or maybe manufactured wood sticks. These techniques shave dollars right into the developers pockets. And frankly have become the norm in the last 5 to 10 years. They aren't much covered in this book.

The reality is that these new story and a half high, architect/engineer designed truss roofs, factory manufactured, and crew/crane installed are a little much for the average homeowner.

On the other hand, if you want to cut your own roof, this comparatively recent book gives you all the info you will need to build 2x roofs in many styles. It's a good basic reference, that covers a lot of procedural detail. I find it very useful. If you are only looking for a roof's worth of studs, you will have no difficulty finding the materials for a stick built roof, of generally higher quality than the truss roofs so popular today.

where's the info 2003-04-05
The rafter jig idea was great, but there just wasn't enough info and detail to actually build it (I thought). I must admit, I'am not a pro as this book "by pros for pros" claims, but I guess if I was a pro, then I would probably find the information in this book to be too elementary. This book is ok for learning roof basics, but it's not enough info and detail to fully learn all that's involved with building roofs.