How To Figure Roof Pitch With A Framing Square

Square guides are available at most hardware and home improvement centers.

How to figure roof pitch with a framing square.

Because of its compact size it is frequently used as a saw guide when cutting framing members as well as a layout tool for quick 45 and 90 degree cuts. To accurately calculate the area of your roof you must first determine its slope or pitch. Finding the pitch of a roof is simple with a speed square. Framing square guides are small inexpensive metal attachments to the framing square that are locked in position on the square s edges at the pitch and run dimensions to define the roof angle and make the repeated marking of the rafters much more efficient.

It is often compared to slope but is not exactly the same. A carpenter s framing square includes some tables stamped right into the tool itself. How to find roof slope rafter length on a framing square how would we use our framing square to measure or to calculate the slope and rafter lengths of this historic herefordshire u k. A roof s pitch is determined by how much it rises vertically for every foot it runs horizontally.

Fix stair gauges on the framing square to mark the pitch. A 6 inch rise per foot. So if the pitch of your roof is 7 12 place one stair gauge on the vertical part of the framing square the tongue at the 7 inches 18 cm mark and place one stair gauge on the horizontal part of the framing square the body at the 12 inches 30 cm mark. Thus a moderate 6 in 12 roof pitch means that the roof rises 6 inches vertically for every 12 horizontal inches it runs.

How roof pitch is calculated. This article explains how to make quick use of a framing square and its imprinted data to get some basic roof measurement data like roof pitch or slope rafter lengths and end cuts. Roof pitch is the measurement of a roof s vertical rise divided by its horizontal run. In the united states a run of 12 inches 1 foot is used and pitch is measured as the rise of the roof over 12 inches.