How To Put Floor Joists In Attic

Air from rooms below will not escape rapidly into the attic.

How to put floor joists in attic.

1 put on work gloves safety glasses and a dust mask before entering the attic. You ll have to construct a wooden frame or sub floor with boards 16 inches apart to provide extra support for the floor. First you ll need to measure the area you want to floor so you can calculate how much wood you ll require. Full the spaces between the frame members with insulation.

Ceiling joists are typically 2 8 lumber floor joists are usually 2 10 or 2x 12 lumber. In the case of 2x6 joists you can pair them up with additional 2x6 joists by nailing them together side by side. Don t skip the insulation in the floor. Raised floors are hardier under the foot with scope for plumbing insulation heating equipment wiring and more.

If your attic joists won t bear the weight necessary to finish out a living space but the engineer cleared them to support floor decking for light storage you can install inch plywood or. While you can get by cheaper by adding no insulation there are two reasons to add insulation between floor joists. We found untapped storage space in the attic that was just waiting to be utilized. The joists must have enough strength to support the load anticipated in the future as well.

However you can easily transform your attic by remodeling its floor using joists to create a safe and stable flooring system. If the attic were designed as living space those ceiling joists would become floor joists and be much bigger. If the attic joists are not adequate one way to strengthen the floor for live loads is to sister the old joists. All it needed was flooring to become a place to stash all our stuff.

Screw the frame to the joists to secure it in place making sure not to screw into electrical wires. We used plywood sheets readily available at lumberyards cut into 2 by 4 foot panels and installed them perpendicularly to the floor joists with a screw gun. Sistering is the process of adding a new joist next to each existing joist. That s a big size and strength difference between the two types of attic joists even if the joist spacing is the same.

To floor an attic you ll need to install a sub floor for support before laying your plywood floor. Build a frame on 16 centers perpendicular to the attic floor joists.