Jack Rafters for Dummies - The Freelance Files MMCVII

 

jack rafters, hip roof

In the "glory days" of content farms, especially those that like eHow.com handed freelancers lists of topics to address, it was common for some people to "stake out a topic" and write as many posts as possible on the subject. If those writers had possessed some expertise, we guess, that would have been fine. Unfortunately, many of them were like eHow's Alexander Callos, who pretended to be an expert on building roofs. Unless he spent summers on a construction crew between years in J-school, however, Callos knew little or nothing about such topics as "How to Cut Jack Rafters"; one of his posts now living at HomeSteady.com. 

We note with some irony that we've already seen three posts Alex wrote about roofs (of the nine we've featured), all of which have been deleted by Leaf Group. What did you expect, after all, from someone who introduced the topic of jack rafters thus:

"Rafters are installed on the roof of homes before the plywood and shingles are added. They are long beams that form the internal framework of a roof. Rafters are available in different sizes, including from 2 inches by 4 four inches up to 2 inches by 10 inches. A jack rafter is a rafter that is part of a common rafter..."

That's not just sloppy writing – rafters "are available" in different sizes? how silly! – but some of is is just plain wrong. Jack rafters are not "part of a common rafter," Jack rafters bridge the top sill of a wall with a common rafter. The "part of" bit, perhaps, was Alex's attempt to say that they are shorter than rafters parallel to the gable because they connect with a hip or valley rafter that marks a break in the roof's slope.

Callos' unfamiliarity with roofs notwithstanding – he tried to tell his readers that a hip roof is "a small roof located usually at the front of a house" – his instructions border on laughable... or they wou;d be if they were not such a waste of time. Take, for instance, his "measurement" step:

"Measure the length the jack rafter will need to be. Run a tape measure from the top rafter on the hip roof down to the bottom rafter..."

Sorry, Alex, there's no "bottom rafter" on a hip; there's a sill; and you also need to allow for designed overhang at the eaves. And how about Callos' feeble attempt to describe cutting the rafters to length:

"Measure the distance on the piece of lumber you will be using for the jack rafter and mark the cut location with a pencil. Slide the board into a miter saw. Press it up firmly against the fence of the saw and line up the blade with the cut mark."

Uh, Alex? What face of the rafter are you cutting here? Is this a simple miter or a compound miter (hint: think "compound")? While you're at it, will you need to cut a bird's mouth? Inquiring minds want to know...  What's truly irritating about Alex's so-called instructions is that he dedicated as many words (if not more) to how to use a miter saw as to the measurement and marking process. And in the process, our Dumbass of the Day failed to include many of the important steps in laying our rafters (though he did warn his readers about protecting "your eyes from flying pieces of wood and other debris" when using a miter saw)...  Something tells us that these alleged roof framing instructions from the keyboard of young Alex will disappear into the dustbin of HomeSteady in the not too far distant future.

DDIY - ROOFS