Truss King Posts pulled out of gussets

Tri-plex built in 1975.

6 each King posts pulled out of the gussets, I’ve only seen one other situation like this in my 20 years of inspecting, but not to this extent.

This was over the garage, and although the garage ceiling looked fine, if I had to guess I’d say at some point in time someone connected the trusses together along the bottom chords and was using them to pull engines out of cars. The only other thing I can think of is overloading by storing heavy items, there were board laid over the webs indicating it was used as storage at some point.

Of course it was called out and an SE was recommened for further evaluation.

Just for curiosity sake, any other ideas what might cause this?

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Curious… is that fire damage (charred wood) in there??

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I didn’t see any fire damage, may just be an optical illusion in the picture.

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Same as yours, but also…

Improper attachment when trusses placed with crane. Contractor “hammered” back in place to pass inspection. Wind uplift event caused to be pulled out again.

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Was this house near Xenia or other areas affected by tornado?

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It was in Hamilton and I really can’t say if it had ever been affected by a tornado.

Interesting thought though.

And there is the hook to do the pulling…LOL!

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Yea Larry, that’s another one that has be baffled.

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At least one person was aware of the damage :upside_down_face:

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Here is a good thread to read on truss plate failure.

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Interesting information, thanks for posting Les. :+1:

no visible sag in the garage ceiling???

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It looks like it only had one row of teeth catching the king post, because the king post was not mitered to fit the peak joint and the plate was positioned too high, or not big enough:

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None visible. The ceiling looked good although it had been textured at some point.

Good point Larry but it appears they were designed this way, I wonder what are local MB SEs would think about it.

Here’s a picture of the trusses over the upper level.

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I agree. Very interesting. Only one row of teeth are embedded? Unless the “tooth” is in the bottom of the hole.

image

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Looks like 4 teeth per hole Brian, but still IMHO not enough, but then again that’s why the engineers get paid the big bucks, to figure this stuff out. :nerd_face:

image

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I observed those same gusset plates in 1979 build here in Bonita Springs last week.

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Thats odd. It looks like it has dropped around 21/2’’

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Yes, designed the way…a very poor design, IMHO! :-1: smh

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