Vaulted Ceiling Roof Truss Design

In a common truss design sloping top chords function just like rafters in conventional framing and horizontal bottom chords fill the role of ceiling joists.

Vaulted ceiling roof truss design.

A vaulted ceiling angles up from the top plates of the wall sections. This decorative type of truss adds volume keeps the room cool and has a relatively low maintenance drywall. This house will have a gable roof and a 16 center area with a cathedral ceiling over the living and dining room areas the roof pitch will be 5 12 with a cathedral ceiling at a 2 5 12 slope the overhang will be 2 around the whole house the trusses on the ends of the house will be drop top gable trusses. There are variations of this design to create numerous unique ceilings.

This design element makes a room appear larger and provides more natural light. The offset scissor truss has a bottom chord that is flat for a distance and then is vaulted up and back down. Exposing elements of the roof structure including the trusses and or rafters can add character to a home. When a vaulted ceiling has a different pitch than the roof planes above scissor trusses are produced.

To build the roof. The partial scissor truss is similar except that the bottom chord slopes up in one direction and then straight down while the remaining portion is flat. It s often used for cellars and long hallways. This works particularly well beneath lofty double height vaulted ceilings but can also work beneath in single height rooms as this example goes to show.

Parallel chord trusses allow for greater interior clearance in buildings. The companies that fabricate the trusses use sophisticated software to design the trusses. Roof trusses are built in a truss manufacturing warehouse and delivered preassembled to the jobsite. The bottom chords are angled to create vaulted ceilings.

In this example a simple 20 x 30 rectangular plan is used. Using the select objectstool select the walls to make gable ends then click the open objectedit button. Launch chief architect and use open planto open the chief architect plan in which you would like to create scissor trusses. You can ask the structural engineer at the truss fabrication plant if there is a way to increase the interior slope but i doubt you ll get much more than one half the slope of the exterior roof surface.

Vaulted trusses the simplest way to get a vaulted ceiling is by setting vaulted roof trusses. Trusses consist of triangular shaped components that hold up the roof and keep the wall sections in alignment. You provide the span of the roof and the desired exterior roof pitch and the software does the rest.