Roof Energy Heel

Roof trusses can be designed with raised heel heights, often called energy heels, to allow for more insulation at the roof edge.

Roof energy heel.

Now you can set rafters atop the plate for a solid roof with plenty of room for insulation. Using the build roof tool, i select trusses. An energy heel raises the roof, and allows for more insulation to reach the outside wall.

This type of truss doesn’t have enough room at the eaves to accommodate the required insulation depth. There are a couple of options for designing energy heels. With the new 2018 building codes going into effect, the powers that be are pushing harder for that new energy heel truss.

Then i put 16 in the raise off plate box check the build roof planes and then click ok it generates a roof structure floating above the upper level ceiling. Like ordinary roof trusses, scissors trusses come with or without a raised heel (sometimes called an energy heel). Simply, it is the thickness of the truss measured at the point where the bottom chord meets the top chord from the top of the top plate to the underside of the sheathing.

Irc energy code requirements & truss heel heights information about ceiling space energy requirements from the international energy conservation code is replicated in both the irc and ibc. Standard and energy heel roof trusses are drawn manually, and created where roof and ceiling planes already are present. (feel free to skip ahead if you know your heels).

To build the roof click build> roof> build roof from the menu. If you ended up with scissors trusses without raised heels, you’ve got a major problem on your hands. One of the most important measurements needed to match an existing roof is called the 'heel height'.

More importantly, the raised heel provides the opportunity to increase energy efficiency to meet new energy code requirements. Better roof framing is not confined to engineered trusses. They’ve even included a 1/2 credit option in the new energy codes.