Residential timber truss repair

[hsad]

Hi all,

I'm having to repair a residential timber truss. All the plates at the roof peak have let go and the entire roof is currently shored up. Does anyone have insight on good repair methods? plywood plates with bolts? nails? Anyone have experience with these fixes.

 

[hsad]

I'm contemplating whether I should spec to add plates on all joints. I'm not able to find any test data on the plates for these trusses so I'm not sure if they meet the design code of today. I was always told if you touch something you must bring the entire thing up to the code of the day. Thoughts?

 

[Ron]

dik...thanks for the correction. The last time I did a repair on truss plates, the TPI told me to bring into alignment and nail the plate as long as it wasn't deformed. That was a long time ago though. I have used plywood gussets many times for both trusses and repair of wood joists where water intrusion has deteriorated the bearing area.

Just did a major repair design with sistering deficient trusses and used pre-punched 1/8" thick steel plates with through-bolting to essentially replace all of the TPI type plates. Original trusses "went south" because of tile roof loading and a bunch of hanging mechanical that wasn't properly considered in the original design (should have been, though!).

 

[dik]

Ron:
I guess the problem with the TPI plates is that they are very tightly designed and have little latitude for installation or re-installation. I did a project about 25 years back where the truss plates had lifted and TPIC informed me that they should just be 'hammered' back in place... not, anymore.

My 'wood expert' is a member of TPIC and I quickly checked with him about repair of the truss plates and he pointed out the truss plate 'book'.

Dik