The Roof Ridge Beam

The ridge board holds them in place.

The roof ridge beam.

A ridge board or beam runs through the tops of rafters or trusses from end to end along a gable roof tying those framing members together. Rafter to ridge beam connection framing roof ceiling construction structural ridge beam absolute deflection in a ridge beam structural ridge beam tricks of the trade. A structural ridge beam is a horizontal beam placed at the peak or ridge of a roof and is designed to carry much of the live and dead loads or weight of the roof structure by itself. The rafters bear most of the weight of the roof.

A simple rafter roof consists of rafters that the rafter foot rest on horizontal wall plates on top of each wall. With this design the ridge beam bears much more load weight than the ridge board on a standard stick framed roof. 2 except as provided in sentence 3 the ridge beam referred to in sentence 1 shall conform to the sizes and spans shown in table a 12 provided a the supported rafter or joist length does not exceed 4 9 m and b the roof does not support any concentrated loads. The top ends of the rafters often meet at a ridge beam but may butt directly to another rafter to form a pair of rafters called a couple.

Ridge beams are required by code if the roof slope is less than 3 in 12 irc section r802 3. B a ridge beam supported by not less than 89 mm length of bearing. Yes either a ridge board or a ridge beam is necessary and required by the building code where roof rafters meet at the the center of their span. I always always build trusses.

A ridge board is a non structural member that serves as a prop for opposing rafters to rest against and connect to. The loads on the ridge beam are carried by vertical posts at the beam ends down through the building structural walls to the building foundation. The difference between them is that a ridge beam is a structural member that bears half of the live and dead loads of the rafters on either side of it but a ridge board is not structural. Now if you have done any looking around this site you ll quickly see that i am not a fan of using a ridge beam in shed construction.

Framing in a ridge beam in shed roof construction is not hard. A timber frame roof has rafters and a ridge beam as with stick framing but the ridge is a large structural beam that the rafters sit on top of or sometimes fit into notches cut into the beam. Glulam ridge beam span table elcho beams tables golagoon.