Framing Beyond the Basics: A 10-Step Guide to Complex Residential Framing: Roof Geometry, Deck Loads, Blueprint Reading, and Material Takeoffs for ... Global Sovereign University · Tradification)

The framing you already know stops working the moment the roof gets complicated. You can cut a common rafter. You can frame a square wall and a straight floor. Then the plans show a hip meeting a valley over a bearing wall that is not where you assumed it was — and the familiar cuts stop being enough.

Framing Beyond the Basics is written for the builder standing exactly there. Not a first book on carpentry, and not an engineering text. This is the working ground in between: ten chapters on the framing that separates a competent carpenter from a builder who can read a complicated set of plans and build what they actually say.

Every chapter follows one thread — the load path . Where the weight comes from, where it goes, and what happens when a pipe, a notch, a chase, or a casual assumption interrupts it.

Inside this book: The geometry of complex roofs — hips, valleys, jacks, dormers, and shed connections—laid out from rise over run to true line length with a framing square The birdsmouth done right — why the seat cut is where rafters are most often quietly ruined, and how deep is too deep Ridge board or ridge beam? — the distinction that is not vocabulary but structure, and what happens when a crew guesses wrong The rules of routing — exactly how much you may notch and bore, where, and why it fit is not the same as it passed Framing for the trades — wet walls and duct chases planned before the plumber and the HVAC installer turn your structure into a negotiation Footings, frost, and the ground — bearing capacity, frost depth, and how frost heave lifts one pier and leaves the next one behind Deck joists, beams, and ledgers — the elevated floor system that is exposed to everything and forgiven for nothing The mobile foundation — tiny houses on wheels: trailer chassis, axle capacity, tongue weight, outriggers, and the loads that only exist at highway speed Racking and the envelope — bracing a structure that must stay square through wind, braking, and cornering Decoding the plans — reading a coordinated drawing set the way it was meant to be read, and finding the load path before the field finds it for you Material takeoffs and honest costing — counting what the drawings require, and choosing a waste factor from the design rather than from habit The book closes with a 119-term glossary written in the language of the job site, including the four term-pairs that are confused most often and cost the most when they are.

Written by a builder, published by a university that charges nothing. Dr. Gene A Constant — Navy and Marine Corps veteran, Doctor of Business Administration, and author of more than 270 books — is the Founding Chancellor of Global Sovereign University, a tuition-free 501(c)(3) nonprofit.

He has donated every one of those titles to the Foundation. Book sales are the foundation's only source of revenue. Every copy funds free education for someone who cannot pay for it.