When it comes to industrial building construction, the strength and reliability of your steel roof truss is critical to guaranteeing your facility’s structural integrity. Steel roof truss is designed for long spans and live load resistance.
The steel truss design, which includes top chords, bottom chords, web members, diagonal members, and vertical members, has proven to be the strongest truss possible, capable of supporting enormous loads and long spans with ease.
Steel building roof truss types
You can choose from numerous steel building roof truss types:
- Open Web Truss: This style of truss combines unrivaled strength with ease of installation, requiring no heavy equipment to place your trusses.
- Rigid Frame Truss: Suitable for commercial structures with clears pans up to 225 feet.
- Gambrel Truss: Designed mostly for agricultural/farm building appearance.
How to build and install steel trusses in four steps?
What you’ll need to build a steel truss:
- Metal cutter (optional).
- Welding torch
- Ladder Man lift (optional)
- Safety gear
- SUPPLIES
- prefabricated metal trusses
- Truss-head lath screws
Start building steel truss roof
Trusses are the structure for your roof, providing shape and support. Unless you are an expert roofer or contractor, this is unlikely to be a weekend DIY project. Roof trusses have an influence on how your roof functions, so any mistakes might lead to serious (and costly) problems in the future. Not to mention the know-how required for successful and safe welding. If you understand how roof components go together and have experience building, the steps below will walk you through the process of making steel trusses.
Step 1: Purchase the trusses
Prefabricated trusses are the greatest option for ensuring proper fit and avoiding steel cutting. You may also purchase pre-cut trusses from a construction materials company. Standard steel trusses are available in a range of widths, ranging from 20 inches to 100 inches in width and a variety of slopes depending on your roof pitch.
Step 2: Assembly of Steel Trusses
When your purchased trusses arrive, they will most likely be fully completed and ready to attach to the roof of your structure, or they may arrive in sections that must be assembled. Trusses consist of three primary parts:
- Top chord: The two steel bars positioned in a triangular configuration that gives a truss its apex, also called rafters.
- Runner is the steel bar that runs horizontally at the bottom of the triangular form.
- Webbing: The steel bars that go in the middle of the truss and provide stability.
Read more on how you can design steel truss members, which are always under elongation forces.
Because the parts are steel-on-steel, the steel bars will need to be welded together to make the trusses if they are not already built.
Step 3: Weld the Truss together
Pros utilize a variety of welding technologies, including metal inert gas (MIG) welding, tungsten inert gas (TIG) welding, stick welding, gas welding, and forge welding, although MIG is the most common. TIG welding is not the only method for joining steel trusses.
Without the necessary safety equipment and credentials, it is better to avoid welding metal yourself and instead employ a trained welder or purchase prefabricated metal trusses. According to HomeAdvisor, employing a welder costs between $13 and $15 every pound of steel used in the job.
Step 4: Lift and hang the Trusses on the roof
Once the trusses are properly built, lift them onto the building structure and position them on the wood support beams. Once in situ, use bolts to fasten the trusses to the structure.
