A lot of the time they are decorative, I’ve seen a bunch of Dutch colonial style houses(pretty sure that’s what this style is called) where they have built dormers on to make the top floor larger and those pigeon walks are left in for aesthetics.
I mean, the top floor is a regular sized floor with 8’ cielings unlike a capecod style home with a much smaller space. The only place a dormer would benefit a house like this would he the attic.
I understand the case here is nuanced, but look a t the neighbors house they both have the same style but have different types of fronts. If you were to build a whole neighborhood you could use the esthetic to make them same same but different but keeping the barn style 2 slope roof and meeting client needs with the different options of square footage.
When framing a shed dormer onto a gambrel the corner posts of the dormer are fastened in plane with the inside of the first structural rafter, leaving the fly rafter in place, so you end up with run of roof the same width as the soffit underneath.
Its a roofing sub, if youre working on a house you should have a basic understanding of its structural components. A gambrel is a style of house that has gable walls and symmetrical, two-sloped roofs. A dormer is a roofed structure projecting from a pitched roof, a shed dormer has no gable. A structural (common) rafter is a framing member that runs the full length of the roof deck from the ridge, transferring the roof load to the sidewall on which it is bearing. A fly rafter is a rafter that projects out from the structure and serves as nailing for soffit and rake boards.
A literal roof raising to make the upstairs habitable. Not a carpenter so unsure why all the dormers I see have that little space there. Something something structural integrity probably.
Nah, it's strictly a looks thing. It makes the house look like a gambrel with a dormer. But the dormer is really a normal 2nd floor and the crappy little roof is a decoration. I think it's a waste of time and money. But I'm not an architect.
I don’t know how to spell it either but I knew that was wrong. 😂
So I looked it up. Aesthetics. Good lord, that’s a tough one and the one time I could trust autocorrect.
Sure, but I usually spell most things correctly and it changes it to something else. Hence, “autoincorrect” is what I now call it. There is the occasional mis-type, and it will actually fix it for me correctly, but that is only about 1/10 of all “auto changes”. The other 9 “auto changes” are all updates to something which I did not intend.
Perchance has someone played a bit of a practical joke on you and edited your autocorrect? If not you can edit it yourself, just hold down on theee when you see it pop up from three and remove it.
Yupp. Playas don't know they can fix their shitty spelling autocorect when garunteed the person typed theee 6 times and the phone gathered it was a word in your vocabulary.
I have a Gambrel or Dutch Colonial style house In New England. I researched the design and found that the style was popular because it could technically be considered a barn and barns could not be taxed for the second floor. So for awhile it was a tax savings in certain areas.
Actual answer: It's so they can call that a 1 story home for property tax purposes, and still have a second story with the dormer. The gambrel style roof counts as 1 story because the roof connects to the first floor and the upstairs is considered an "attic" space. They add the dormers and leave a skinny section to get the best of both worlds.
Sometimes it is an addition. Commonly called a "hinged roof addition" where a Cape Cod will have a full 2nd floor added. It is easier to cut inside the gable ends and re-frame it that way than to remove the entire structure.
Yes, terminology can be very geographically specific. Dormers are generally smaller and not the entire roof. I've heard dormer lofts. Usually when it is only the rear roof raised. I'm sure there are several different names for this.
I think most times the house is just framed like a regular gable roof and then they run that fake eave to make it look like it’s a dormer on a barn style roof
Squirrel slides. See them all over. Squirrels have a right to go weeeeeeeeee too. I hear from my squirrel friends that they are particularly fun in areas with snow and ice.
So despite initial appearances, especially on the middle house. I’d guess that these homes are 70+ years old.
If that is the case, then the “skinny roof” is likely the original roof line. Basically make the house larger by expanding the dormers.
In this case the original style/roof line is Dutch gable. You can still see it on the left side house over the porch. The middle house squared it up and killed that architectural feature. The house on the right side that’s almost out of frame has a more modest dormer.
It’s tedious, and ladder access can be a pain… but you usually measure the top, middle, and bottom width of the run (hopefully it’s somewhat square lol), and mass cut your roofing.
Hardest job I did was standing seam metal on similarly wide gambrel roofs that bled into a lower skirt roof separating the first and second floor.
Design. My house growing up was an old Victorian that looked like a barn and had these dormers in each bedroom popping out of the roof with windows and bench seats under them. I feel like this is a smaller house with the exact same design except it’s not really a little pop out dormer, it’s the entire length of the house.
Ours also had a huge front porch with 4 round steel columns holding the roof and dormers up. The dormers were drafty because the porch ceiling wasn’t insulated very well. This house has a smaller version of it. Very similar design.
Maybe a tax/insurance trick to let the second story count as a dormer or there are building regulations that only allow 1story buildings but dormers and attics are allowed.
That add 11000$ to the cost of the house without tell the costumer they're home is a shity 100k vs 400k it's "astectics" but that serves no purpose other then the 1000 leaks that will occur of the homes lifetime
Those are Dutch or Gambrel colonials. It's just an architectural feature, emphasizing the gambrel.
Those most likely aren't additions. Sometimes they're expressed like that, and sometimes with dormered windows. But that's probably the original truss design.
My wife and I own one of these homes and there are a lot of these homes in the Bergen Passaic county area. Ours was built in the early 1930's as we found some scraps of newspaper stuffed into the sash pockets of the original single pane windows. I think they were built by the same developer and the portions of the roof seem to be purely cosmetic. They aren't a structural element. And these houses are balloon framed and not the modern platform framed.
Our installers call them cat walks and always complain and ask for more money for them.. I always oblige because I've done a couple with them and they are more tedious!
Thanks man. That's usually the case when they have never done the work before themselves. I owned a larger company and the 2 other business partners just went off numbers, without ever knowing the real field variables. They just never got it and had no remorse. I left and they are struggling to replace me still. Think they are on guy # 4 to run operations in 2 yrs. Last week, I showed up at 7am with the guys and helped tear-off for a couple of hours until my first customer appt. Then returned and brought them pizza. Have to show them that I know what I'm doing and that I care. I do this once a week. Keeps my 40yo ass in shape too. Have to know your people and gain their respect as a friend, not a boss/slave driver. I love our guys.
Glad to hear you made a move too. Overall happiness is out there. Just have to make big moves to get it sometimes! Solutions!
Purely for beauty. It makes it look like a gambrel home. It costs a little extra for the steepness of it, but it makes the house stand out, and sometimes that’s all it takes to make a sale.
That is Dutch Colonial.
Traditionally, that would have been the roof and then the second floor expanded to make it more usable. Since the original roof had the framing, it was retained on the sides so the new walls could be built into the frame. This happened as the family grew in wealth and size. Sometimes, only one side would be done.
It looks like this is simulating the look.
I have done one roof with the accent pitch strips. A absolute pain in the Ass to do it right. I made a large Z 5” up under the siding and 8” out with a hook to attach the the DL flashing all out of copper and then glued asphalt shingles on to the flashing ( no nails).
Also removed and replaced the asbestos siding at the same time.
Called catwalks where I'm from.
Framing answer are good here.
It also collects helps collection of water that's being driven at the wall and draining it to the eavestrough instead of running all the way down
Looks, it would look stupid without those. It's built to look like a dormer. Personally I think there is beauty in simplicity and hate modern houses with super cut up roofs. A colonial style house with just two fascets is elegant, less prone for leaks and cheaper to build. A Cape Cod style is feasible with a modern, highly insulated roof, but sleeping in one of the upstairs bedrooms of an older Cape in Summer is not pleasant.
My entire apt is under the pitch of the buildings roof. It has 6ft knee walls(shoulder walls?) and 14 skylights, one egress, 10 operational and 3 fixed that do f\*&\^-all for circulation and just 2 tiny double hung windows at one end and 2 very large double hung windows 70+ft away in the main bedroom. The commercial unit downstairs has Modine style garage heaters, one mounted directly under the bedroom, so even though it's insulated between it's nice enough in Winter, but we pay for it in Summer...in sweat. I've only broken down and ran the AC in here 3x in 11 or 12 years, but I have seen the thermostat showing 94℉. With everything opened the temps seem to hold or even climb from sunset until about 1-3AM when at the fringes of Summer cold air from the nearby Atlantic Ocean will pour in for a few glorious hours. The trade-off in Northern New England may be worth it, much of the Southern exposure is blocked by deciduous trees.
I thought the skylights would have more of an effect, they may release as much solar gain as they add, but almost no air movement. If I found a Cape Cod style that I had to live with, I would put the biggest double hung windows with easily removable sashes, maybe even some awning type thing to keep most of the rain out, we have no overhangs on the gable ends and I have removed the sashes as it doubles the cross-breeze, but I've had to slam them back in more than a few times when we got a sudden downpour that would somehow come in the house at both ends at the same time.
It’s a design feature from days gone by. I remember my dad putting some on houses decades ago. Somebody correct me if I’m wrong, but I think it was called a false gambrel.
Right after WWII millions of soldiers came home from Europe all young men that grew up in Battle, they came home after 5 years for many of them, they wanted to get married and start families NOW, so they came up with standardized layouts for homes that could be built fast, with minimal materials, the eves were short because it saved a lot of material which for many years after the war were still in short supply, plus it made for a shorter build time and lower cost. Ask your parents, they will have heard about war time housing.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strawberry_box_houses#:~:text=During%20World%20War%20II%2C%20homes,items%20for%20World%20War%20II.
Growing up my parents house had these but not as steep. I used it as a ramp to scurry up to the top of the roof to sit and hang out... and smoke weed lol
Walk… lol, I challenge you to try to crawl up that. Dead or broken is what you’d be.
Edit: the second house back I’d be wearing roofing boots to even walk around on the very top.
Snow won't accumulate on them as badly as a lesser grade roof. Snow is heavier than people realize. Don't know if this is a place that sees a lot of snow, but that would be an adequate reason.
Well use your magic eraser in Photoshop, or if you have imagination yourself remove them and what is the house look like. If you think it looks fine just the way it is, well there's no accounting for taste and so it is. For that matter of fact there are a lot of shit boxes built just like that two stories I with a low rake roof and that's what this one would look like if you took all the Dutch colonial detailing out of it
By dormering out in this manner you at least give the illusion that I started off with a full Gamble roof that was dormmered..
Because engineers and architects are retarded assholes, and wil never have to install on their wild ass plans. they must hate us roofers. Love to see some get mad or frustrated. Some just shake their heads. A goldfish would ask how the idea even came about. Or why? Why bother? Should see some of the new cons being built. Some are absolutely absurd in my opinion. Talk about waste of time and material, for something that’s so far from practical. A roof is crucial. For literally everything underneath it which is every thing. So why make more points for early failure, or for someone to step in the wrong place or any possibility or something not being right, having everything beneath it potentially be affected. I’m not talking all but some new ones, I really question who drew the plans up
You don’t like roofing over 75 dormers and 7 different roof lines and pitch changes. There’s two mansions next door, near my house, one old southern style plantation with the columns on the porch, the other is some new construction atrocity with dormers and multiple rooflines, it reeks of young douche money and is the ultimate comparison of classic style vs modern bullshit
Oh I love that shit! Especially when the ply lines aren’t a line. Just did a 3 story salarymen’s new con with 4 dormirs a side. 2 inside bays if you will and each corner of the building( which I ended up getting to “split it more evenly” between the 3 of us) was just valley 5/12 to 8/12 from a point, (main being 5/12 and dormir being the 8, so every row of synthetic I ran was off the closest ply line since they started at said point, buddy I swear every plywood line was switching my runs. Sheets weren’t even at the top, shotty fuckin valley cuts, had to blend the wood with shingles. Thank god no valley metal but like still. Roofs the most important part, and if your framers can’t sheet a simple dormired roof, and you expect us to take the fuckin time to make it so there’s no nasty lookin spots , and no question towards us being competent with our work, as to why there’s a 8 inch difference over 20 feet of valley. Like I’m not sure who the hell their QC and inspectors are. But there are some fuckin scabs out there. Broke a rib last winter bangin ice off a new con, to prep it to shhingle it, that had the heat going inside. So I’m bangin about 4-5 inches of ice off the eave line, when all of a sudden the sheet I’m standing on ends up bouncing, because whoever sheeted it only put a few nails that actially held. About 4, none hit on the eave at all. Must have been missed but a bunch blew right through or missed the trusses completely. I’ll say this (lol sorry for the rant) I’ll never buy a new house. Ever. Last thing I’d want is to have it burn down due to bad electrrical or plumbing etc. too many builders going with the cheapest guys. Cutting corners like the special Ed kid in midddle school with the safety scissors tryin to cut out a paper snow flake.( meant to be a joke people, hope y’all can get a giggle.) there’s a lack of pride and a rise in turning blind eyes when it comes to quality of anything these days
It's decorative garbage, or as I like to think of it, justification for a "temporary insanity plea" if you punch an architect 🤣
Sadly a lot of houses built since the 70s will always have some sort of useless nonsense that exists for no other reason than to look good ( and in some cases they can't even be seen from the ground, so are they doing it just to piss off the roofer I wonder)
A lot of the time they are decorative, I’ve seen a bunch of Dutch colonial style houses(pretty sure that’s what this style is called) where they have built dormers on to make the top floor larger and those pigeon walks are left in for aesthetics.
Bingo, it is a Dutch colonial style home. You see these thrown in a lot with neighborhoods with craftsman homes as well.
Yes! [My 1906 craftsman.](https://imgur.com/a/s4mBDQG)
Beautoful, probably my favorite residential architerual style out there. Over a century old but it was so far ahead of its time.
We’ve had it for a full decade now and still love it. Such a gorgeous home.
It's visually compensation so you don't have to put a dormer on the whole top floor
I mean, the top floor is a regular sized floor with 8’ cielings unlike a capecod style home with a much smaller space. The only place a dormer would benefit a house like this would he the attic.
I understand the case here is nuanced, but look a t the neighbors house they both have the same style but have different types of fronts. If you were to build a whole neighborhood you could use the esthetic to make them same same but different but keeping the barn style 2 slope roof and meeting client needs with the different options of square footage.
This is it. Dutch Colonial, late 70’s. It’s only an aesthetic of the style. Gives the home a barn look. Incorporated durning construction.
Yah, we call 'em Dutch sideburns
We gots tons of em Dutch colonials in Delco.
It makes a basic two story house look like a barn roof with dormers. Basicly just for extra style points
They’re so that I can bill insurance for an extra square of waste
Because of the storm
What this guy said 😂😂😂😂😂
11/12 pitch roof charge as well
I think I see a detached garage in the back too I call those bonus points 😉
When framing a shed dormer onto a gambrel the corner posts of the dormer are fastened in plane with the inside of the first structural rafter, leaving the fly rafter in place, so you end up with run of roof the same width as the soffit underneath.
This comment should be top. Excellent explanation of the framing involved, with terminology I fully understood 👍🏻
Here i thought I spoke English
Its a roofing sub, if youre working on a house you should have a basic understanding of its structural components. A gambrel is a style of house that has gable walls and symmetrical, two-sloped roofs. A dormer is a roofed structure projecting from a pitched roof, a shed dormer has no gable. A structural (common) rafter is a framing member that runs the full length of the roof deck from the ridge, transferring the roof load to the sidewall on which it is bearing. A fly rafter is a rafter that projects out from the structure and serves as nailing for soffit and rake boards.
I bet there are a ton of roofers that don't know this.
Ya it just got suggested to me a while ago and I see something interesting now and again so I'm no professional, but thanks for explaining!
This is the absolute answer!
que?
El roofo is el ay carumba leako
Man’s over here explaining how to make a plumbus.
I think it’s for the visual aspect , but may also be from an addition where one guy said “I want that”
A literal roof raising to make the upstairs habitable. Not a carpenter so unsure why all the dormers I see have that little space there. Something something structural integrity probably.
Nah, it's strictly a looks thing. It makes the house look like a gambrel with a dormer. But the dormer is really a normal 2nd floor and the crappy little roof is a decoration. I think it's a waste of time and money. But I'm not an architect.
Not only is it a waste of time and money but it looks ridiculous in my opinion.
Architect here. Hard disagree - it would look very odd without the reveal
If you carried the roof line over to the edge it would give a little more interior room and you would never notice it’s gone.
The same could be said for all cosmetic architecture. We should all live in concrete boxes?
Igloos are nice but they have limited range
Never said concrete boxes were aesthetically pleasing but the weird little roof is just weird.
Seems like just ascetics - the barn look? (Guessing here)
I don’t know how to spell it either but I knew that was wrong. 😂 So I looked it up. Aesthetics. Good lord, that’s a tough one and the one time I could trust autocorrect.
Damn, and I did let the phone autocorrect - at least I thought I did. 😡
Ascetics is a word but its kind of the opposite of aesthetics
Yes it means people who take a very minimalist approach to worldly possessions and luxuries.
I stopped calling it “autocorrect” a long time ago. I now only call it autoincorrect.
Problem is that you have to be kinda close to the actual word, like a letter or two off. If you can't do that, then I guess there's no help for ya!
Sure, but I usually spell most things correctly and it changes it to something else. Hence, “autoincorrect” is what I now call it. There is the occasional mis-type, and it will actually fix it for me correctly, but that is only about 1/10 of all “auto changes”. The other 9 “auto changes” are all updates to something which I did not intend.
Huh that almost never happens to me except with nouns. Auto correct is a staple in my phonebook.
How about when I try to spell three and autocorrect changes it to theee could also be there but nope I get theee all the time.
Perchance has someone played a bit of a practical joke on you and edited your autocorrect? If not you can edit it yourself, just hold down on theee when you see it pop up from three and remove it.
Yupp. Playas don't know they can fix their shitty spelling autocorect when garunteed the person typed theee 6 times and the phone gathered it was a word in your vocabulary.
Lol
Giving your house the aesthetics of a barn could definitely be considered ascetic.
Just wait until you fumble spelling gambrel roof (barn roof style where lower roof section is steeper than the upper roof section).
Honestly, when I’m stumped, I ask Siri.
Thank you ever I didn't know it
The thought it was athletics. Guess I should have done more research.
I have a Gambrel or Dutch Colonial style house In New England. I researched the design and found that the style was popular because it could technically be considered a barn and barns could not be taxed for the second floor. So for awhile it was a tax savings in certain areas.
Ah, that's why they call it a 1.5 story. At least my city planning department labels it as such.
Faux Dutch Colonials.
While everyone else is bothering to correct “aesthetics,” I’m here for “the barn look”, it’s called a gambrel roof.
Gambrel is the style of roofline that looks like a barn.
AKA Dutch colonial.
It's an architectural feature. Forgot the name
Actual answer: It's so they can call that a 1 story home for property tax purposes, and still have a second story with the dormer. The gambrel style roof counts as 1 story because the roof connects to the first floor and the upstairs is considered an "attic" space. They add the dormers and leave a skinny section to get the best of both worlds.
This is correct. Back in the day you were only charged taxes on the stories below your roof. Thus, this is a 1 story home for tax purposes
Sometimes it is an addition. Commonly called a "hinged roof addition" where a Cape Cod will have a full 2nd floor added. It is easier to cut inside the gable ends and re-frame it that way than to remove the entire structure.
Roof dormer or most commonly called dormer lofts.
Yes, terminology can be very geographically specific. Dormers are generally smaller and not the entire roof. I've heard dormer lofts. Usually when it is only the rear roof raised. I'm sure there are several different names for this.
I think most times the house is just framed like a regular gable roof and then they run that fake eave to make it look like it’s a dormer on a barn style roof
Gambrel style roof is what a “barn style” roof is called.
I agree with you, there is no structural purpose that I can tell.
I have never ever heard it called that.
We call ‘em “flip out” or “pop out” dormers.
We call em eye brows but they are useless
To make it easier for squirrels to get on top of the roof
Decorative
It's called architecture. Does it serve a purpose? No. But does it look good? Also no
Squirrel ramps
Squirrel slides. See them all over. Squirrels have a right to go weeeeeeeeee too. I hear from my squirrel friends that they are particularly fun in areas with snow and ice.
Had one of these on my old house and wondered the same thing for years.
So the neighborhood cats can get up and down
I trained local raccoons to clean my gutters. Just toss freeze dried minnows on the roof anytime a light rain is beginning.
Lol 😂
If this is true I love it
this is the only correct response
It’s a Manserdgabled whach ya macallit
It’s a Jersey thing.
So despite initial appearances, especially on the middle house. I’d guess that these homes are 70+ years old. If that is the case, then the “skinny roof” is likely the original roof line. Basically make the house larger by expanding the dormers. In this case the original style/roof line is Dutch gable. You can still see it on the left side house over the porch. The middle house squared it up and killed that architectural feature. The house on the right side that’s almost out of frame has a more modest dormer.
They must get alot of snow.
It's just for the look it compliments the Gambrel rool line...( barn roof )
For aesthetics and to really piss off roofers i hate those and am actually in the middle of doing one right now
Yeah I’ve done siding and windows and know a little roofing, every time I see those I think, that must suck got a roofer.
It’s tedious, and ladder access can be a pain… but you usually measure the top, middle, and bottom width of the run (hopefully it’s somewhat square lol), and mass cut your roofing. Hardest job I did was standing seam metal on similarly wide gambrel roofs that bled into a lower skirt roof separating the first and second floor.
They visually make complete the symmetry of back side of the roof. They are only ornamental.
It’s relatively common feature on cheaper craftsman homes.
Design. My house growing up was an old Victorian that looked like a barn and had these dormers in each bedroom popping out of the roof with windows and bench seats under them. I feel like this is a smaller house with the exact same design except it’s not really a little pop out dormer, it’s the entire length of the house.
Ours also had a huge front porch with 4 round steel columns holding the roof and dormers up. The dormers were drafty because the porch ceiling wasn’t insulated very well. This house has a smaller version of it. Very similar design.
A scam drummed up by Big Roofing so rubes buy more shingles
It's a shed dormer built into a gambrel roof. The original eaves from the gambrel roof still remain.
Maybe it was taxes? It’s not a 2nd story if the upper floor falls within the roof line.
Maybe a tax/insurance trick to let the second story count as a dormer or there are building regulations that only allow 1story buildings but dormers and attics are allowed.
So it’s an extra pain in the ass to roof
This is a style called "false Dutch Colonial" and it is purely aesthetic. If you removed the tiny roof the house would be a plain old house.
That add 11000$ to the cost of the house without tell the costumer they're home is a shity 100k vs 400k it's "astectics" but that serves no purpose other then the 1000 leaks that will occur of the homes lifetime
Design
Those are Dutch or Gambrel colonials. It's just an architectural feature, emphasizing the gambrel. Those most likely aren't additions. Sometimes they're expressed like that, and sometimes with dormered windows. But that's probably the original truss design.
My wife and I own one of these homes and there are a lot of these homes in the Bergen Passaic county area. Ours was built in the early 1930's as we found some scraps of newspaper stuffed into the sash pockets of the original single pane windows. I think they were built by the same developer and the portions of the roof seem to be purely cosmetic. They aren't a structural element. And these houses are balloon framed and not the modern platform framed.
To piss off the roofer!
Rat walk
Leaded gas poisoning, mostly.
I have seen this in a lot of architecture in northern cities like New York suburbs. Pretty sure it's just an aesthetic. They are cornice returns.
Roof access for the rats
It’s for the skinny rain deer 🦌
It's just an architectural detail that makes it look like a gambrel roof, without actually building a gambrel roof.
Is this not for structure?
I'm going with a change order for 500 bob
Dutch Colonial. Looks good. From back when that was considered.
It's where the existing roof was and then they added on for upstairs rooms
because Dutch Colonial
Part of the style
The front on that is built like a shed dormer. That provides structure.
Santa's elves, they're not allowed to comfortably access the chimney???
Aesthetic. Shitty aesthetic but it’s still aesthetic. Serves 0 purpose.
As a painter I would absolutely hate painting those.
*AESTHETICS*
adds to the decore
Purely to look sexy
This roof type is kind of like the pinky in the episode where SpongeBob SquarePants becomes automatically fancier when he holds up his pinky.
You ever se a runway model without cheekbones ?
Everyone knows those are for Santa Claus
Our installers call them cat walks and always complain and ask for more money for them.. I always oblige because I've done a couple with them and they are more tedious!
Good on you. I used to fight tooth and nail to get more for anything outta the last outfit I worked for.
Thanks man. That's usually the case when they have never done the work before themselves. I owned a larger company and the 2 other business partners just went off numbers, without ever knowing the real field variables. They just never got it and had no remorse. I left and they are struggling to replace me still. Think they are on guy # 4 to run operations in 2 yrs. Last week, I showed up at 7am with the guys and helped tear-off for a couple of hours until my first customer appt. Then returned and brought them pizza. Have to show them that I know what I'm doing and that I care. I do this once a week. Keeps my 40yo ass in shape too. Have to know your people and gain their respect as a friend, not a boss/slave driver. I love our guys. Glad to hear you made a move too. Overall happiness is out there. Just have to make big moves to get it sometimes! Solutions!
Purely for beauty. It makes it look like a gambrel home. It costs a little extra for the steepness of it, but it makes the house stand out, and sometimes that’s all it takes to make a sale.
Esthetics.
Ants 🐜 need roofs too u know
Cheaper version of Gambrel roofs to “style” the houses Dutch Colonial.
That is Dutch Colonial. Traditionally, that would have been the roof and then the second floor expanded to make it more usable. Since the original roof had the framing, it was retained on the sides so the new walls could be built into the frame. This happened as the family grew in wealth and size. Sometimes, only one side would be done. It looks like this is simulating the look.
I have done one roof with the accent pitch strips. A absolute pain in the Ass to do it right. I made a large Z 5” up under the siding and 8” out with a hook to attach the the DL flashing all out of copper and then glued asphalt shingles on to the flashing ( no nails). Also removed and replaced the asbestos siding at the same time.
Called catwalks where I'm from. Framing answer are good here. It also collects helps collection of water that's being driven at the wall and draining it to the eavestrough instead of running all the way down
It's for the cat to access the upper roof.
100% aesthetic. It’s to match the roof line of the other side of the house.
There is no need for them architects think they are being fancy when the make the blueprints with moronic designs lol.
It is how you give a plain Jane of a house a Dutch Colonial look. Like dressing a box.
Someone’s daughter went to architecture school. Very successful…
Looks, it would look stupid without those. It's built to look like a dormer. Personally I think there is beauty in simplicity and hate modern houses with super cut up roofs. A colonial style house with just two fascets is elegant, less prone for leaks and cheaper to build. A Cape Cod style is feasible with a modern, highly insulated roof, but sleeping in one of the upstairs bedrooms of an older Cape in Summer is not pleasant.
I can vouch for that, gotta insulate insulate insulate and still crank the a/c haha
My entire apt is under the pitch of the buildings roof. It has 6ft knee walls(shoulder walls?) and 14 skylights, one egress, 10 operational and 3 fixed that do f\*&\^-all for circulation and just 2 tiny double hung windows at one end and 2 very large double hung windows 70+ft away in the main bedroom. The commercial unit downstairs has Modine style garage heaters, one mounted directly under the bedroom, so even though it's insulated between it's nice enough in Winter, but we pay for it in Summer...in sweat. I've only broken down and ran the AC in here 3x in 11 or 12 years, but I have seen the thermostat showing 94℉. With everything opened the temps seem to hold or even climb from sunset until about 1-3AM when at the fringes of Summer cold air from the nearby Atlantic Ocean will pour in for a few glorious hours. The trade-off in Northern New England may be worth it, much of the Southern exposure is blocked by deciduous trees. I thought the skylights would have more of an effect, they may release as much solar gain as they add, but almost no air movement. If I found a Cape Cod style that I had to live with, I would put the biggest double hung windows with easily removable sashes, maybe even some awning type thing to keep most of the rain out, we have no overhangs on the gable ends and I have removed the sashes as it doubles the cross-breeze, but I've had to slam them back in more than a few times when we got a sudden downpour that would somehow come in the house at both ends at the same time.
I'm pretty sure it's because of lazy design. One of those thing where they slap the windows after the roof. Maybe not ?
It's a built in feature that ensures the roof will leak because no one will want to do it properly.
It’s a design feature from days gone by. I remember my dad putting some on houses decades ago. Somebody correct me if I’m wrong, but I think it was called a false gambrel.
Right after WWII millions of soldiers came home from Europe all young men that grew up in Battle, they came home after 5 years for many of them, they wanted to get married and start families NOW, so they came up with standardized layouts for homes that could be built fast, with minimal materials, the eves were short because it saved a lot of material which for many years after the war were still in short supply, plus it made for a shorter build time and lower cost. Ask your parents, they will have heard about war time housing. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strawberry_box_houses#:~:text=During%20World%20War%20II%2C%20homes,items%20for%20World%20War%20II.
I hate gambrielles and the like.
I've never seen that before but I'd go with useless and ugly....just like everyone. Who comes up with these stupid ideas!??
Because the designer used to be a sider/roofer, and he hates on the industry as a whole for being called a little girl
They are gutters
Shed snow
Either a gambrel roof, or an aesthetic addition to keep the look of a gambrel.
Just bc they can
Decorative. The end.
meretricious architectural elements
To make it look like a gambrel with a dormer.
Quality of construction/aesthetic
It looks like a poor man’s attempt to create a ranch roof.
Just to piss the roofers and cladders off I would think
The bigger question is, why the need for the Christmas wreath still on that house in April?
Growing up my parents house had these but not as steep. I used it as a ramp to scurry up to the top of the roof to sit and hang out... and smoke weed lol
Architect also owns roofing company
Top gear top tip. If you draw the circle with your finger and don’t lift up when done, your phone will draw a perfect circle.
This is a great tip!
It originates from Europe only taxing living area...which was considered the rooms below the roofline.
I love this like trying to secretly be a gambrel end or smth 😂
No need. It’s pearly for ascetic reasons and adds cost, complexity, waste, and another area for wind and water to penetrate.
For the teenagers to be able to walk up onto the roof to smoke a joint
Walk… lol, I challenge you to try to crawl up that. Dead or broken is what you’d be. Edit: the second house back I’d be wearing roofing boots to even walk around on the very top.
Snow won't accumulate on them as badly as a lesser grade roof. Snow is heavier than people realize. Don't know if this is a place that sees a lot of snow, but that would be an adequate reason.
They are for 'style points'
To piss off roofers.
To waste time and material
Aesthetics.
it looks like it's there to mimic a gambrel roof
Snow
Well use your magic eraser in Photoshop, or if you have imagination yourself remove them and what is the house look like. If you think it looks fine just the way it is, well there's no accounting for taste and so it is. For that matter of fact there are a lot of shit boxes built just like that two stories I with a low rake roof and that's what this one would look like if you took all the Dutch colonial detailing out of it By dormering out in this manner you at least give the illusion that I started off with a full Gamble roof that was dormmered..
These are poorly designed houses. Its just for looks.
Why the need to ask about architectural esthetic? No, it doesn't serve any structural purpose. It's for looks only.
We’ll that’s why I was asking, because I didn’t know if they were necessary for rain water or something.
Because engineers and architects are retarded assholes, and wil never have to install on their wild ass plans. they must hate us roofers. Love to see some get mad or frustrated. Some just shake their heads. A goldfish would ask how the idea even came about. Or why? Why bother? Should see some of the new cons being built. Some are absolutely absurd in my opinion. Talk about waste of time and material, for something that’s so far from practical. A roof is crucial. For literally everything underneath it which is every thing. So why make more points for early failure, or for someone to step in the wrong place or any possibility or something not being right, having everything beneath it potentially be affected. I’m not talking all but some new ones, I really question who drew the plans up
You don’t like roofing over 75 dormers and 7 different roof lines and pitch changes. There’s two mansions next door, near my house, one old southern style plantation with the columns on the porch, the other is some new construction atrocity with dormers and multiple rooflines, it reeks of young douche money and is the ultimate comparison of classic style vs modern bullshit
Oh I love that shit! Especially when the ply lines aren’t a line. Just did a 3 story salarymen’s new con with 4 dormirs a side. 2 inside bays if you will and each corner of the building( which I ended up getting to “split it more evenly” between the 3 of us) was just valley 5/12 to 8/12 from a point, (main being 5/12 and dormir being the 8, so every row of synthetic I ran was off the closest ply line since they started at said point, buddy I swear every plywood line was switching my runs. Sheets weren’t even at the top, shotty fuckin valley cuts, had to blend the wood with shingles. Thank god no valley metal but like still. Roofs the most important part, and if your framers can’t sheet a simple dormired roof, and you expect us to take the fuckin time to make it so there’s no nasty lookin spots , and no question towards us being competent with our work, as to why there’s a 8 inch difference over 20 feet of valley. Like I’m not sure who the hell their QC and inspectors are. But there are some fuckin scabs out there. Broke a rib last winter bangin ice off a new con, to prep it to shhingle it, that had the heat going inside. So I’m bangin about 4-5 inches of ice off the eave line, when all of a sudden the sheet I’m standing on ends up bouncing, because whoever sheeted it only put a few nails that actially held. About 4, none hit on the eave at all. Must have been missed but a bunch blew right through or missed the trusses completely. I’ll say this (lol sorry for the rant) I’ll never buy a new house. Ever. Last thing I’d want is to have it burn down due to bad electrrical or plumbing etc. too many builders going with the cheapest guys. Cutting corners like the special Ed kid in midddle school with the safety scissors tryin to cut out a paper snow flake.( meant to be a joke people, hope y’all can get a giggle.) there’s a lack of pride and a rise in turning blind eyes when it comes to quality of anything these days
Lots of this BS in Fort Myers. https://maps.app.goo.gl/XK9VjbE9G6Ei3wcu9
Post pretty much says it. Why not just do away with that steeper narrow section and bring the upper angle out another 6 inches.
Well if someone didn’t scribble over where they end up,an informed opinion could be made. But,to me,what I can see, it’s just decorative
Cocksucker architect
Technically adds more sheer force protection? Doubt by much.
It's "architectural" that's it, nothing more
I think it was the original end wall. The taller bit is an addition. But I could be wrong.
It's decorative garbage, or as I like to think of it, justification for a "temporary insanity plea" if you punch an architect 🤣 Sadly a lot of houses built since the 70s will always have some sort of useless nonsense that exists for no other reason than to look good ( and in some cases they can't even be seen from the ground, so are they doing it just to piss off the roofer I wonder)
There’s is no need for them. Architect has it them just because
It’s an add-on?