After struggling with hip rafters
and talking to an old-timer or two,
novice framers discover that joining
two roofs isn't that tough — for hips
and valleys you just cut all your
bevels at 45 degrees, and use 17
instead of 12 for the run on the
framing square.
Then it happens: That bid you
submitted for the job with the
adjoining, unequally pitched roofs
gets accepted, and you've got to figure
out a way to frame it.
One approach is to order twice
the framing lumber required and
keep cutting hips and valleys until
you get it right. Another is to buy a
fancy framing calculator and take a
course in trigonometry. Or you can
use the Zepp