On Thursday, July 26, 2018 at 10:25:35 AM UTC-4, -MIKE- wrote:
On 7/26/18 2:41 AM, wrote:
On Wednesday, July 25, 2018 at 10:51:27 PM UTC-5, -MIKE- wrote:

First thing that jumps out to me is a four sided hip roof and
pyramid hip roof. All the rafters would terminate near the two
trunks and you could get creative with how it all joins together at
the peak.

Hmmm.... I would certainly hope that the carpenters had that skill
set. I am thinking of trying to header off the common rafters
someway, then creating a stable frame to hold up the hip rafters,
then fitting in each jack rafter (cheek cuts on one end, bird's mouth
on the other)in an unsquare and unstable roof structure. A lot of
work for a tree house.

I looked at the pics and the last drawing said that there was a
"preferred" direction of the rafters. Personally, I would change
that. Then you could make a simple offset gable roof that used all
common rafters and simply block out around the trunks. In fact, you
could cut the roof closely enough around the tree trunks that you
could flash the base of the penetration, then attach a counter
flashing (like a storm collar) around both trees and solve the water
proofing as well. By counter flashing the penetrations (trees) in
that fashion they would not be compromised in a windy environment.

Robert


What's been done so far looks pretty legit, so I assumed the builder had
a decent skillset to begin with.

Well his skill set is growing along with the tree house. I've done decks and
walls, etc. so I've been coaching him a bit in that regard. He picked up a lot
of "treehouse" support structure skills from the company that he bought the
treehouse hardware from. He's a pretty smart guy in general.


However, even with the preferred rafter direction, he could sandwich the
tree trunks and have a rafter going between the two. Then just block in
around them.


That's basically where we were heading. Just looking for some other options
from the real experts.