What is this called? Drawing a blank

I am half tempted to call this a girder or exterior roof beam, or something else. I dunno. What is the proper name for it?


Frieze board

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Front porch cornice with column capitals that need repair and paint. LOL

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A rotten frieze board.

Thanks so much guys

Based on the nailing pattern, your yellow arrow is pointing at a trim piece covering a frieze beam.

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Ah, makes perfect sense!!

It took me 36 hours to remember “escutcheon”.
Wow, I spelled it right the first time.

beams of the house

Terms are really tricky, they vary so much regionally. I generally follow Darren, since he’s an engineer, and if you search for his term “frieze beam”, you get exactly what you’re looking for. But I’d use “roof support beam” just because I don’t think clients would understand the engineering term, and I don’t think you’d get clobbered in court for using a term the client is more likely to understand.

The downspout looks like a radon periscope.

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Here is a good graphic;

am i wrong to think of this as not a support beam? i get the concept. However what we can see is a rotten Frieze board. Which is essentially not the support for this porch roof/ am i wrong in thinking of it this way? I think the two are very different and would require a different level of concern or repair. could one say rotten frieze board which requires further inspection to confirm if this damage continues to support beam or not.? thanks for any insight

The last time I built one like that, it had a 2 or 3 member 2x and then you dressed it with pine trim to look just like that picture and it was carrying the ceiling joist and rafters above it. So it is a support beam.
That type of framing for a porch was common for houses in the 60’s and 70’s for this area.

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so we are looking beyond the "pine trim " that “dresses” the “support”… bare with me i’m just trying to learn how to describe things and cover myself properly

A “frieze board” is never a structural component. It’s just trim.

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correct that is what i’m getting at. We can clearly see the rot on the frieze board. But we cannot see beyond that to the beam. That was why i sent my first question as to why we would call it " roof support beam " as stated above to appease a better understanding for the client. that was what i was questioning just to familiarize myself. Being new my biggest concern has been properly wording things as to protect myself and minimize confusion to clients

Maybe this rough sketch will help you.

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We noted rot on the frieze board, structural header inaccessible for physical review… Something like that !

It’s basically an assembly composed of a structural support beam that is the two inner 2Xs, covered in trim that is the pine frieze boards. If the pine trim is continuous between supports, then it actually contributes somewhat to supporting the roof structure.
The decay may or may not be limited to the frieze board, so it may or may not affect the structural integrity of the roof support. You’d need to probe the 2Xs to find out.

i misunderstood this. i do understand the difference in the terminology. I was just confused as to why we would use an “incorrect term” instead of explaining frieze board to the clients a little differently