Truss design drawings, prepared in conformance to Section R802.10.1, shall be provided to the building official and approved prior to installation. Truss design drawings shall be provided with the shipment of trusses delivered to the job site. Truss design drawings shall include, at a minimum, the following information:
- Slope or depth, span and spacing.
- Location of all joints.
- Required bearing widths.
- Design loads as applicable.
- Top chord live load (as determined from Section R301.6).
- Top chord dead load.
- Bottom chord live load.
- Bottom chord dead load.
- Concentrated loads and their points of application.
- Controlling wind and earthquake loads.
- Adjustments to lumber and joint connector design values for conditions of use.
- Each reaction force and direction.
- Joint connector type and description such as size, thickness or gage and the dimensioned location of each joint connector except where symmetrically located relative to the joint interface.
- Lumber size, species and grade for each member.
- Connection requirements for:
- Truss to girder-truss.
- Truss ply to ply.
- Field splices.
- Calculated deflection ratio and/or maximum description for live and total load.
- Maximum axial compression forces in the truss members to enable the building designer to design the size, connections and anchorage of the permanent continuous lateral bracing. Forces shall be shown on the truss design drawing or on supplemental documents.
- Required permanent truss member bracing location.
Wood trusses shall be designed in accordance with accepted engineering practice. The design and manufacture of metal-plate-connected wood trusses shall comply with ANSI/TPI 1. The truss design drawings shall be prepared by a registered professional where required by the statutes of the jurisdiction in which the project is to be constructed in accordance with Section R106.1.
The provisions of this section shall control the design of truss roof framing when snow controls for buildings, not greater than 60 feet (18 288 mm) in length perpendicular to the joist, rafter or truss span, not greater than 36 feet (10 973 mm) in width parallel to the joist, rafter or truss span, not more than three stories above grade plane in height, and roof slopes not smaller than 3:12 (25 percent slope) or greater than 12:12 (100-percent slope). Truss roof framing constructed in accordance with the provisions of this section shall be limited to sites subjected to a maximum design wind speed of 140 miles per hour (63 m/s), Exposure B or C, and a maximum ground snow load of 70 psf (3352 Pa). For consistent loading of all truss types, roof snow load is to be computed as: 0.7 pg.
Trusses shall be braced to prevent rotation and provide lateral stability in accordance with the requirements specified in the construction documents for the building and on the individual truss design drawings. In the absence of specific bracing requirements, trusses shall be braced in accordance with accepted industry practice such as the SBCA Building Component Safety Information (BCSI) Guide to Good Practice for Handling, Installing & Bracing of Metal Plate Connected Wood Trusses.
Truss members shall not be cut, notched, drilled, spliced or otherwise altered in any way without the approval of a registered design professional. Alterations resulting in the addition of load such as HVAC equipment water heater that exceeds the design load for the truss shall not be permitted without verification that the truss is capable of supporting such additional loading.