Walking Top Plates

TempestV

I've done roofs that way before. We were framing several houses with the same footprint, so we would build the roof for one house on the first floor deck of house next door. We would get about 4 houses setup and ready to go, and then the crane would come. The only thing that didn't get done on the ground was the shingle ridge cap. All the sheathing and the shingles were done before the roof left the ground.

getting shingled on left, already lifted on right, and half way sheathed on right.


Roof in the air

Brandito

definitely wouldn't object to sheeting roofs of that pitch on the ground 12? 14?

pretty cool to see the entire roof lifted at once, any idea what the final weight was? had to be a pretty good sized crane i imagine, possibly a 90+ ton?

why no tyvek on the gables though?

TempestV

The roofers liked it to- they cut their bid by quite a bit provided that they could roof it while it was still on the ground. and the pitch is 12/12

I'm not sure what the weight of the roof was, but the crane was a 90 ton link-belt.
It was pretty wild to be underneath it directing it in as it was lowered onto the walls.

Because the GC was cheap. He had us leave the dimensional lumber truss tails exposed as the finish and painted it. I heard that on another one of the houses this guy built, he painted epoxy garage floor paint over the osb because it was cheaper than linoleum. We came back and did half the decks on these houses, and the GC's crew did the other half. The decks done by the other crew were downright sad. Lag bolts ran in half way and left. Metal hangers half nailed. The T&G over the porch roof was the worst I've ever seen. 1/3 of the boards were upside down, and it's the only time I've ever been able to see daylight through the gaps in T&G

Brandito

cool stuff, did they always fit well? i guess if you got your over-all dimensions spot on it should be fine.

we've used 2x12 for fascia before, not sub either, it was the finish material, and it was just dimensional lumber. it was one of those roofs with a 2' overhang too, putting 2x12 fascia on, that's finish material on a 3 story roof with a 2' overhang. then the last job i was on had the same thing, but the 2x12 was just sub this time. still sucks putting that on when you got a big overhang like that.

TempestV

yea, all the roofs fit pretty well, which was nothing short of a miracle. The walls were prebuilt and set by another company that also built the trusses, and all the walls and trusses were warped, bowed, and bent in every conceivable way. I think I described this particular job in another post when we were talking about panels. Many of the truss top cords had massive crowns, some up, and some down. One of the trusses even had a line snapped on the top of the top cord when we pulled it out of the package, from nothing at either end, a 1" crown in the middle, so the company must have known about it. After you set the trusses and cut the tails to length, you would have to snap a line down the end of the truss tails, and figure out how much each truss tail was low or high of the others and get them to all line up by planning the high ones and adding custom shims to the low ones. With two guys, it added another 2 hours to the time to build each roof. Over the course of the 6 houses, we racked up a $6000 back-charge to the wall and joist guys.

Brandito

yikes, had to cut the tails to length? did they deviate that much? or were the left to run wild from the factory?

that says something if you have roof trusses with bad crowns in their top cords. it's not even something you can do much to fix, besides maybe scabbing the trusses next to it to feather it out.

TempestV

they were left long from the factory. No problem there. It was all the work between that and nailing on the fascia that we didn't like.
which is exactly what we had to do. they wanted us to use composite trim board for the fascia, and we put that on the first one, and it looked like waves on the ocean. Then we started snapping a line and making the tops more uniform, plus we switched to dimensional lumber for the fascia, which wasn't as flexible, and made things a little better.

we fought this companies work the whole project. they were suppose to plumb all the walls, but we would still have to re-plumb them after they left because many of the walls were still out by 3/4" or more. When we were framing decks later in the project, on one porch roof, we had to custom cut each rafter because a section of 2 story wall that the roof ran into had a 3/4" bow in it.

Brandito

we had some mono trusses on this big retirement community once, the roof was sheeted in 7/16 and the mono's required plywood gussets cut by us where they met (instead of a ridge board) well i'm sure that would have worked had the shinglers not landed all their shingles up there and had them sit for a week in the rain. the ridge of that roof looked like a serpant, it was horrible.

K2

A younger version of me could walk the walls on my hands. Osha started bugging us here for residential in the early 90's. That's when I found something else to do.... I think osha comes and goes with the economy and budget cuts.

Brandito

i think a lot of companies have just started shutting down for the day when osha shows up, it's cheaper than getting fines.

hughjazz

I always layoutwith the wall on the deck.

For exterior walls I'll walk the the first floor.
And on the 2'nd story when we set the trusses,

I avoid it when possible. I'm too valuable to my family to take unnecessary risks.

I don't mind dragging around a ladder anyway.


Interior walls I'll walk blindfolded. It's only 9'

GBAR

Used to walk them, then at 5o, my toes and the plates grew farther away! Then used a ladder, then got smart and laid out with all the walls on the deck. With all three wall plates exactly where they go, the stud layout done, the double top plate is ready to lay for trusses, rafters, or joists. Just use the existing ply joints to grab layout anywhere in the house. Big houses, (3k-up), I will snap chalks to divide the deck into thirds, both ways, with odd color, to simplify accuracy with layout. If you build 1st deck square, studs over those joists, 2nd joists over those studs, and on up, plumb your walls on the money, never walk another wall. Even works on 45*and 22* walls.

Brandito

built some houses for a builder out here and they only did single top plates with 2 foot stud spacing. you knew you messed up if the studs and trusses didn't line up. they HAD to stack, there was no "cheating" it or anything.

these houses went up so quick, i'd never buy one though

KennMacMoragh

I remember the same thing around the early 90's. I don't know if it was osha or wisha(safety board for Washington state) changed the height rule from 10 feet to 6 feet. It was always 10 feet before, then they lowered it. But that 6 foot rule only lasted about six months to a year, then they raised it back up to 10 feet. You're probably right how they come and go with the economy, there was a huge boom in construction at the same time they raised it to 10. There was so much building going on that L & I didn't have the resources to enforce every framer to not walk the top plates.

woodworkbykirk

last year there was a guy who was walking the top plate of a ext wall on the 2nd storey of a house going up in town, the wall wasnt nailed down to the floor adequately and wasnt properly braced,

the wall tipped he went down 2 storeys to the ground and spent quite some time in the hospital the first couple of weeks were in intensive care, it was on the news and in the paper.

so if yer gonnna do it make sure the conditions are safe enough

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putting down subfloor with glue and screws, well i saw dr. smith and the robot too , i had a martian burger and a sonic shake

nailman

When I do fascia now I take plywood and cut a 2" by 12" slot in it then screw them to the side of the rafter and drop the fascia into the slot I cut and that really helps with the weight and holding it in place while you nail or screw it in place.

SC sawdaddy

Or as they say...If your gonna be dumb, you gotta be tough.

Martin Co

Back five years ago, when I was 23 I learned my lesson walking top plates.. It didn't result in any kind of injury just the mental kind.. I was framing with a crew of 20 production framing, pre-fab walls, trusses, etc.. I've got excellent balance and coordination for being 6'3 - but not for a sudden burst of wind with a sheet of plywood in my hands.. Needless to say, if i didn't let go of the plywood at the exact moment I was flying...

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Brandito

wait, you were walking top plates holding a sheet of plywood? or were you walking joists or floor trusses? i'm going to assume the latter, as i can't see a need for the former.

i'm 6'3" too, i have gained pretty good balance, but the shorter guys always seem to have a much easier time up there, it's one area where being tall is a total disadvantage.

BattleRidge

Those are off fergusen right Tempest? In our town OSHA spreads like wildfire and we all go home. Ive never done anything but walked walls. Never worn a harness on a scaffold either. Or hardhats. Nobody does here. And if I wear a harness on a roof its over 10/12. Carrying a sheet of plywood on the plates in gnarly though lol. Ive had the worst rolling joist and then someone missed nailing one to the rim. Thats happened twice now.

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