Open Eaves Roof

Closing off the eaves in your home can be easily done with a little preparation and understanding about how your eaves are built.

Open eaves roof. From left to right. Types of eaves. Fortunately repairing rotten or weathered eaves is a relatively simple project that you can do yourself without ever having to climb onto your roof. The eaves are the edges of the roof which overhang the face of a wall and normally project beyond the side of a building.

Eaves are the edges of the roof which extend over the side of a building and overhang the face of the wall. A closed eave has very little or no overhang extension beyond the siding. The eaves form an overhang to throw water clear of the walls and may be highly decorated as part of an architectural style such as the chinese dougong bracket systems. Eaves also provide shade to a building helping them to maintain a comfortable.

Doing so raises the eave which prevents it from conflicting with the window head height. A roof can come to an end in basically three ways. In an open eave design the roof rafters or joists and roof sheathing are visible. I recently built a small outbuilding with a 6 in 12 pitch roof that offers a perfect example for showing the process i use to build eaves and rakes.

The overhang keeps any rainfall away from the walls whilst the junction where the roof meets the wall is also protected from water ingress. A box eave is enclosed with a soffit. When designing an open eave with roof trusses make sure that you raise the heel of the truss and use a thicker top chord. With a soffited eave design the roof rafters and sheathing are hidden through the use of a panel or boards that extend horizontally from the edge of the roof typically being attached to the bottom of the fascia back to the exterior wall.

In the modified houses major structural problems such as leaking roofs were repaired windows were screened open eaves were blocked with bricks and mortar cement floors were repaired or constructed and rain gutters and a rain water storage tank were added. Open eaves with trusses. Open eaves provide access for the effects of weather. Start with the rafter tails the main component of any eaves detail is the rafter tail the part of the rafter that extends beyond the exterior wall.

Closed eaves with angled soffit closed eaves with flat soffit and no raised heel.