Stoke Ferry Village Hall
A full strip back and replace of the roof on the village hall in Stoke Ferry, Norfolk, finished with a brand new trussed roof. Worked around a busy community booking schedule to keep the hall usable.
Roofing carpentry · Spalding, Lincolnshire
Roof trusses supplied and fitted
Roof trusses supplied, craned in and fixed across Lincolnshire, Cambridgeshire and Norfolk. We own the crane, so your set lands on the day it was planned to land, and we can carry on to felt, batten and tile.
What we do
A trussed roof is a delivery date, a lift and a day of accuracy.
Prefabricated trusses are the quickest way to get a roof on, and the quickest way to lose a week if the wall plates are out, the lift slips or the set arrives with nowhere to stack it. AJB Group takes the whole sequence: order, delivery, lift, fix, brace and strap.
Trusses are set out from the fabricator's layout drawing, sat on levelled and strapped wall plates, craned in as a set and then held square with longitudinal, diagonal and chevron bracing before anything is let go of. Gable ladders, spandrel panels and infill get cut in as the set goes together, and hip ends are formed with girder trusses and jack rafters where the layout calls for it. It sounds routine because it should be. Roofs go wrong when someone treats the bracing as optional.
Where a truss layout will not fit the building, and on conversions and steel framed structures it often will not, the answer is a hand cut roof instead. AJB carpenters do both, and on some roofs the two meet: raised tie trusses pitched at 35 and 45 degrees running into 16 metres of common cut rafters over a box beam on one recent high end residential build.
Truss work we take on
- Standard
- Fink and mono sets on houses, garages and estate plots
- Raised tie
- Vaulted and part vaulted ceilings, 30 to 45 degree pitches
- Hip sets
- Girder trusses, jack rafters and hip ends
- Attic
- Room in roof sets, see attic trusses
- Lift
- Our own crane, slung by our own team
- Fixing
- Wall plate straps, truss clips, full bracing and binders
- Finish
- Optional felt, batten and tile, plus fascias and plastics
Output, not promises
What the team gets through in a week.
Speed on trussed roofs comes from having enough carpenters to run more than one plot at a time. Fourteen are employed full time, split into external and internal teams.
On the Long Sutton development, a 69 unit estate in south Lincolnshire, six attic roofs were completed in a single day and phase one was pushed to water tight on programme. At Quadring, seven plots were roofed in on one site day. On a 300 home development the team has been running garage roof installations plot by plot alongside the full internal carpentry package. On the smallest jobs the same applies in miniature: a self build house and attic trussed garage at Guyhirn, two big hip roofs, done as a pair.
Deliveries are planned to match. A truss delivery that lands on a Friday gets fitted from the Monday, because trusses stacked on a site for a fortnight are damage and theft waiting to happen.
For main contractors and developers
Send the roof plan, sections and the truss layout and AJB will price the package from drawings, supply and fit or fit only. Repeat plot types get priced once and repeated, which keeps valuations simple and keeps the roof off the critical path. CHAS accreditation, SMSTS certification and a retained external health and safety consultant mean the pre-qualification pack and RAMS are ready before you ask for them.
The crane is the other reason contractors use AJB for truss work. Not waiting on a hired lift removes a dependency from your programme, and a roof gang that also fits joists and rafters can take the plot from first floor deck through to water tight without a handover in the middle.
For homeowners and self builders
If you are building a house, a garage or an extension, the truss set is usually the moment the project starts to look like a building. You get a free site visit and a written estimate first, then one point of contact for the order, the crane, the fix and, if you want it, the tiling.
A recent example: a raised tie trussed roof with new plastics on a two metre by two metre rear extension at Long Sutton, part of a full strip back and rebuild. Small roof, same method, same carpenters who did the twelve roofs at Bourne Town Hall.
Proof
A whole village hall roof, replaced.
Long Sutton development
A 69 unit estate in Lincolnshire where AJB carpenters ran joists, roofs and externals, completing six attic roofs in a single day and pushing phase one to water tight on programme.
Related roofing services: attic trusses and room-in-roof, hand cut roofs, or back up to roofing carpentry.
Common questions
Roof truss questions
Do you supply the trusses or just fit them?
Either. We work supply and fit, taking the truss order, the delivery, the lift and the fix, or fit only where you have already placed the order with a fabricator. Supply and fit is the more common arrangement on contract work because it puts one company in charge of the whole roof.
How long does a trussed roof take to fit?
A straightforward house or garage roof is usually a two day job once the trusses are on site. We have completed an attic trussed roof in two days, six attic roofs in a single day at Long Sutton, and seven plots roofed in on one site day at Quadring. Larger and more irregular sets take longer, and a hip end always adds time over a plain gable.
Do you bring your own crane for the truss lift?
Yes. We own a crane and sling our own truss and joist sets, so the lift is not dependent on a hire firm turning up. That matters most on tight sites and on self builds, where a missed lift slot can cost a week.
What is a raised tie truss and when do you use one?
A raised tie truss lifts the bottom chord above wall plate level so the ceiling can follow the roof line and give a vaulted or part vaulted room below. We have fitted raised tie sets pitched at 35 and 45 degrees on a high end residential roof, a 16 metre raised tie at 30 degrees over a pool room, a raised tie roof over an indoor pool for SSL Home Creations, and a raised tie trussed roof on a rear extension at Long Sutton.
Can you finish the roof as well as build it?
Yes. Our roof on and roofed in package covers the structure plus felt, batten and tile, so the building is handed over water tight and you only deal with one trade. Fascias, soffits and plastics can be added to the same package.
Do you fit trusses on village halls, commercial buildings and conversions?
Yes. We stripped back and replaced the roof on Stoke Ferry Village Hall in Norfolk and fitted a brand new trussed roof in its place, working around the hall booking schedule to keep disruption down. Trussed roofs also go on garages, stable blocks, industrial units and estate housing.
Need a truss set lifted and fixed?
Send the layout drawing and we will price supply and fit, or fit only.