How To Reinforce Attic Floor For Room

To many the attic is an unclaimed portion of their home ready to be converted to bedrooms baths or even rec rooms.

How to reinforce attic floor for room.

Mike embarks on a project to lay a floor in the attic loft space. A raised platform of lumber in dimensions of 2 4 or 2 6 with insulation placed between joists and covered up with a 12 inch plywood helps build the right flooring. In massachusetts attic floors must support at least 30 lbs ft live load the same as bedroom floors if the attic is accessed by means of a fixed stairway 780 cmr 5502 3 1. Rip 1 2 thick plywood to 24 widths so it will fit up the attic stairs.

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. Mike embarks on a project to lay a floor in the attic loft space. Nail the block in place with 16d. How to reinforce an attic floor with sister joists clear the joist spaces pull out all insulation and any debris from all of the joist spaces so you can see the full length of each joist including where it meets the exterior walls.

Build a frame on 16 centers perpendicular to the attic floor joists. Screw the frame to the joists to secure it in place making sure not to screw into electrical wires. Adding a 2 x 4 along the bottom chord of the 2 x 6 ceiling floor joist maybe helpful in stiffening the joist as well. While it may appear that this transformation would involve no more than some flooring insulation and drywall attic remodels are fairly complex.

Measure the width between the span of two joists. Attic renovations can be much more than meets the eye. Cut a piece of 2 by 6 or 2 by 8 lumber according to the width. Place the lumber block between the two joists.

Full the spaces between the frame members with insulation. Use a span table to determine the necessary joist dimensions given their span length spacing wood species and grade.