Often there isn’t a lot of engineering that goes into that connection. The LSSJ hanger connects the jack rafter to the hip rafterĬonnecting a 2X jack rafter to a hip is hardly new. The hardest thing is making a good compound miter cut – something an experienced framer can figure out (and most engineers marvel at). In many parts of the country, these are simply face-nailed into place.
The LSSJ jack hanger is used for stick-frame construction and provides a connection between the jack rafter to either the hip rafter or the valley rafter as shown below. In the United States, the number of truss-built roofs versus stick-frame roofs is about two to one. The main difference is that stick assembly takes place onsite, while trusses are prefabricated and ready to place. There are two basic types of wood roof construction: framed roof construction (stick framing) as shown above, and truss assembly. What is a jack hanger and why does it provide a better connection than nails alone?
This new design allows it to be adjusted to typical rafter slopes, with a max slope of 12:12 up or down. It’s an innovative field-slopeable and field-skewable hanger that features a versatile hinged seat. The result is our new LSSJ field-adjustable jack hanger. After much consideration, the team decided that rather than adapt one of our existing hangers, they would try to come up with an all-new design that would satisfy our customers’ most pressing needs.Īfter months of designing and testing prototypes in the lab and in field trials, the answer was yes. Our Engineering innovation team took all this feedback and closely evaluated our current selection of hangers. Also, having a hanger that could be installed from one side was a popular time-saving request. We were asked whether we could design a hanger that could be installed after the rafters were already tacked into place to support construction sequencing and retrofit applications. We heard from installers that they really wanted a hanger that could be easily adjusted in the field for different slopes and skews. That’s what we did recently with a connector improvement project for attaching jack rafter hangers in roof framing – and we got lots of feedback! When our company is considering a new or improved product, we like to start out by talking to our customers first.