Valley Beam – Wednesday’s Word Of The Week
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| Valley beams connecting to compression ring |
Continuing the theme of beams named after parts of roofs is the valley beam. Whereas a roof hip is the high point between two roofs coming together at an angle (so the roofs slope away from the hip), a roof valley is where the bottom of two roofs come together (water flows into a roof valley.) A valley beam follows the joint between these roofs.
Similar to ridge and hip beams, glulam valley beams are typically shop fabricated to match the supported roof slopes, in this case with a V shaped bevel cut on top. In some cases, if the roofs come in at different angles, or have different slopes, it will be an asymmetrical V, or have a step in the middle, to get the top of roof construction to align along the valley at the waterproofing layer.
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| Roof valley from exterior |
*Wednesday’s Word Of The Week is a new feature on Unalam’s Wood Times Blog. Each Wednesday our structural engineer, Rik Vandermeulen, will discuss a new term associated with glulam manufacturing. He will do this until we run out of words. If there is a timber or glulam term that you have heard of and want to know more about, let us know in the comments.