Beginner guide to roof rafters, gables and hips.

Of the Many Shapes of the Roof the gable will be Found Most Suitable for the Beginner. Marking off the Wood for Cutting is Simplified by the Use of a Steel Square as Explained by the quality Building Tradesman on the French Riviera

THERE are various shapes of roof such as lean-to, gable, hip, hip and valley, gable and valley and Mansard.

For the average do-it-yourself man just starting on rafter cutting perhaps the gable roof is the most suitable.

First, one should be familiar with the names of the different parts of a roof. Span is the overall width of building taken from outer edge of wall plates.

Run is the horizontal distance from wall plate to a point directly under ridge. This as a rule is one half of span.

Rise is the height of roof at centre of ridge (see Fig. 1).

The steepness of a roof is known as its pitch and pitches most commonly used are one-half, one-third, one-quarter and one-sixth. A roof with half pitch is half as high as the building is wide. If it is third pitch it is one-third as high as it is wide and so on.

Fig. 1.

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