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Don’t Forget! You Saw it in the
Adverti$$er
August 2022 #14277 Page #70
Design Connections You Want the Trusses to Support What? Geordie Secord, Senior Recruiter TheJobLine.com – Canada
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s I mentioned in last month’s article, My Road to The JobLine, there was a time when I thought I had seen everything in the truss and component world. But here I am 37 years in, and architects, builders, and do-it-yourselfers still surprise and amaze me.
The applicable building code for your area calls out standard design loads that you use daily when designing trusses. These loads would typically include provision for live loads such as snow, wind, and maybe seismic loads if you are in an area where that is a concern. In addition, we see dead loads such as the weight of the trusses themselves, roof sheathing and shingles, insulation, etc. Of course, snow loads can vary from non-existent in southern regions to greater than 150 psf in mountain areas, with similar variation in wind loads. Here in Ontario, for example, our building code tells us that wind doesn’t blow on house roofs, although the identically shaped commercial structure next door needs to be designed for wind (and this was not a very comforting thought while I sitting in my house watching a Tornado warning scroll across my computer screen). Finishes can also range from asphalt shingles to clay tile on the roof, with corresponding increases in loading. All these loads are fairly typical, and you can usually find the loads to be applied are either spelled out on the plans – all too rare in my experience – or available in the building code documents or charts of weights of materials. But what about those more unusual requests? Here are just a few that I have encountered during my career in this industry. •
A wealthy client was building a new waterfront vacation home and the plans called for the center piece of the main floor to be his prized 6’x12’ snooker (pool) table. Estimated weight? Something in the range of 3,500 pounds. His architect, engineer, and builder had all tried to convince him that the table would be better placed in the basement of the home, but he was firm in wanting it on the main floor with a magnificent view of the lake as the backdrop. In this case, special floor girder trusses were designed to support the table at a carefully mapped position within the room. We certainly didn’t want the table legs, each supporting something like 600 pounds, to end up resting just on the floor sheathing.
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