Does anyone have any experience in designing a octagonal room that can be built without the use of tie beams from wall to wall supporting a kingpost at the center of the tie beam and supporting the roof planes at the peak.
I was wondering if I could use some metal braces which would be fastened to a triple top plate at each of the eight wall intersections, which would form a continuous ring preventing any outward thrust from the roof eight roof planes. Has anyone ever heard of doing this or something similar? Do you think you think it would work? We would like to do something similar to this to keep the cathedral ceiling in the octagonal room open as much as possible, without any obstructions of tie beams or kingpost. Thanks
Bay Shore Building & Design. Inc.
Residential Building & Computer Aided Design Services
Replies
Jet,
I've thought about this too. In Will Hollady's new book he recommend nailing a continous metal strap around cicular rooms with cone roofs. It would seem reasonable to me that the same principles apply to an octagonal room. I'm not sure. I'll give you the pat answer "check with an engineer". If you do, post what he says here. I'm interested in what the answer can/might be.
Who is Will Hollady? And where can I find his book?Bay Shore Building & Design. Inc.
Residential Building & Computer Aided Design Services
http://bsbad.tripod.com
Jet,
Here is a link to the book. I think I've read it about a million times since it was published in November.
http://www.jlconline.com/cgi-bin/jlconline.storefront/3e8a2eef000fc4fc271a401e1d29064c/Product/View/RC102
If you are a member of the JLC online library, you can get the article. It is written by Will and is about cone roofs. It might even be free (but I doubt it).
Thanks for the info.Bay Shore Building & Design. Inc.
Residential Building & Computer Aided Design Services
http://bsbad.tripod.com
You can certainly build it that way. As the previous post said, you should see an engineer.
Jet,
Very good question. I'm trying to figure out where I seen this done. It was years ago, I think in a developement where the smallest house was 6000sf.
I think that they used a Cable System. Kind of like the anderson bay window.
They ran cables along side the rafters bolted in and then bolted threw the top plates. I think is was in one shot, from one top plate across both rafters to the next top plate. I think they even ran them down the wall studs.
I'm very interested also to here from an engineer.
Joe Carola
Here a detail of what I had in mind that I was thinking of doing.
Bay Shore Building & Design. Inc.
Residential Building & Computer Aided Design Services
http://bsbad.tripod.com
Edited 4/1/2003 5:30:37 PM ET by JETdraftsman
I know your question is regarding the bottom ends, but also look at the Simpson Strongtie site for what they call a "gazebo" bracket. They're made to join the tops together neatly.
-- J.S.