Hip roof
A hip roof, hip-roof or hipped roof, is a type of roof where all sides slope downwards to the walls, usually with a fairly gentle slope (although a tented roof by definition is a hipped roof with steeply pitched slopes rising to a peak). Thus a hipped roof house has no gables or other vertical sides to the roof.
A square hip roof is shaped like a pyramid. Hip roofs on houses could have two triangular sides and two trapezoidal ones. A hip roof on a rectangular plan has four faces. They are almost always at the same pitch or slope, which makes them symmetrical about the centerlines. Hip roofs often have a consistent level fascia, meaning that a gutter can be fitted all around. Hip roofs often have dormer slanted sides.
Construction
Hip roofs are more difficult to construct than a gabled roof, requiring more complex systems of rafters or trusses. Although the roof itself is harder to construct, the walls that carry the roof are easier to build, being all one level. Hip roofs can be constructed on a wide variety of plan shapes. Each ridge is central over the rectangle of the building below it. The triangular faces of the roof are called the hip ends, and they are bounded by the hips themselves. The "hips" and hip rafters sit on an external corner of the building and rise to the ridge. Where the building has an internal corner, a valley makes the join between the sloping surfaces. They have the advantage of giving a compact, solid appearance to a structure. The roof pitch (slope) may vary.
