ENERGY-SMART RAFTER TAILS ARE NOT CONTINUOUS: A more thermally efficient approach to rafter tails is to end the roof rafters at the top plate and add a rafter-tail assembly at the eave. With the increase in popularity of exposed rafter tails, different styles and shapes came to characterize traditional home styles such as Craftsman, West Indies, Italianate, and Carpenter Gothic. Beyond that, exposed rafter tails provided opportunities for designers and carpenters to demonstrate their skills by adding corbels and also mitered, scalloped, or beveled details. By cutting notches into the rafter tails, for example, you could create a place to rest gutters directly within the roof structure, an elegant solution before modern gutters became available.Īesthetically, exposed rafter tails created a pleasing and unfussy character, highlighting the beauty, rhythm, and order inherent in the building’s structural form itself. Exposed rafter tails also offered the possibility of function. At other times, the rafter tails are left exposed.Įarly examples of exposed rafter tails likely occurred for reasons of efficiency and economy, as simple plumb-cut rafter tails successfully created an overhang with no extra effort, material, or expense. Sometimes the projecting portions of the rafters - the rafter tails - are cut plumb and level to be boxed in with a soffit and fascia or more ornamental trim. These roof overhangs direct water away from the walls and the foundation, shelter entry doors, and shade windows from the summer sun. The roof rafters on many houses extend beyond the top wall plate to create overhangs at the eave (so-called lookouts create overhangs at the rake). They celebrate the hand of the craftsmen who built the home and allow the true nature of its construction to be on display. As an architect, I love the authenticity of exposed structural elements like rafter tails.
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