Originally Posted By: Chris Hall
Originally Posted By: MTF
below is one we did a few years ago, 36x50. I like a little less in the gambrel, but that's just me.

have fun!

Pete


What does that mean? To which part are you referring?


It's a Mansard roof by the way - the old Dutch word Gambrel refers to a hipped gable roof. I put up a thread a while back on the history of the word 'Gambrel', and described how the term came to be mis-applied. Of course, it's anyone's prerogative to perpetuate that, but then we could also go back to calling 'oranges' correctly too: "noranges". The phrase ' an orange' is an example of "consonant migration", coming originally from 'a norange'.

Mind you, with orange/norange it's pretty easy to see how the change happened - with 'Gambrel' though it's like they took a thing called an 'orange' and started calling it a 'grapefruit'.

Well, so given that habit of speech usually wins out, fat chance of anything changing, so I realize I'm probably just shouting into the wind in terms of "Gambrel" too. Still it's worth trying to get the, er, word out.

Here's a picture from Thomas Corkhill's The Complete Dictionary of Wood (1982):




I refer to the lower/steeper shed rafters as the gambrel portion of the roof and the upper roof section as a gable. My understanding is that as a 'whole', that style roof is referened to as a 'gambrel roof'. My original statement was an effort to identify that I do not prefer a large or extremely steep shed or gambrel rafter set. Everyone seems to have a different sense of what looks appropriate in this style roof .

Thanks,
pete