Roof Trusses in place

We decided to work on a Saturday to lift the roof trusses in place. This process took us about 2 1/2 hours to complete. Once again, having the crane on site really helped reduce time and labor costs. Our crane provider (Gawain Mainwaring--Smart Builders in Asheville) was great to work with. Not only are his hourly crane rates very reasonable, but his crane operators were very flexible working with our schedule.

My preference going into this project was to build a vaulted hybrid timber frame roof with exposed rafters and beams and then place Eco-Panels 6.5" R-40 roof panels on top. After further research, I realized I needed to go with a different option. The two main reasons for this were cost and simplicity. As for costs, I estimated that the timber frame roof option would cost an additional $7,000-$30,000 depending on the truss design and wood species. As for simplicity, by switching to a basic 2x4 engineered truss, I could avoid additional load bearing requirments and create a prototype home that a future buyer could customize by changing room sizes and locations without additonal engineering. Basically, this prototype has only 1 interior load bearing wall for the staircase. In place of using Eco-Panels for the roof (which is a great option) I will have the roof deck and gable ends spray foamed to achieve an R-Value of around 30. I will have the insulation contractor spray foam the entire roof deck including the overhang area reducing the need for a vented soffit. I will use ZIP sheathing underneath the overhang and tape the seams prior to having the soffit material installed.