1st DIY project: loft flooring

[Richard]

After years of living cosily as a tenant - with everything done for me - I'm now getting used to being a homeowner. I went into the loft of my (brand) new house to find a surprising amount of space, so I want to get some chipboard loft flooring from B&Q and lay it.

1) Are joists always a certain space apart from one another, meaning that that one piece of board simply lays across two parallel joists ? 2) How strong is this likely to be ? If I stood and jumped on it a few times would I still be in the loft afterwards or in the bedroom underneath ? 3) Is it simply a matter of whacking a few nails into each board/joist or is there something more complicated (and hence a good reason why a builder would charge a four-figure sum to do the same job) ???

[Christian McArdle]

Not exactly, although modern houses might actually be at a standard spacing, such as 600mm or 450mm.

You should be OK. The joists aren't particularly strong. However, they are sized not because of final snapping load, but to limit flex. By jumping up and down, you are unlikely to end up on the floor below. However, you are quite likely to end up with cracks all over the place. The same may happen if you are tempted to use the loft for heavy storage.

3) Is it simply a matter of whacking a few nails into

Use screws. You can get screws out easily and it doesn't crack the plasterboard skim below.

On a modern house, you may find insulation is installed that rises well above the level of the joists, making boarding quite impractical, especially if the joists are so marginal that the dead load of cross joists would be too great.

Christian.

[PoP]

Generally speaking the loft boards you buy at Homebase et al will span

2 joists. However you can't always depend on it, and frequently you need to trim the end of the board to fit precisely.

Your joists might give way if you gave them that sort of treatment! The loft boards you buy at the DIY shed are fine for the general population, however if you are 20+ stone in weight I wouldn't recommend it.

Why would a builder charge a 4 figure sum? I charge £120 to do loft boarding and it takes a day of effort. If the builder is charging a lot more then you might have "mug" tattooed on your forehead. Add the cost of the boards and it works out to around £200 all in.

PoP

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[Julian Fowler]

My advice: don't do it ... unless you're proposing to convert the loft into living space (which involves a *little* more than putting down boards!) you'll end up with "useful" storage space which will rapidly fill up with all sorts of crap that really should go straight to the latest landfill ...

:-)

Julian

[BraileTrail]

In message , Christian McArdle writes

Could you expand on that a bit please, what do you mean by marginal and what is "dead load"? By "cross joists" do you mean laying additional 3" x 2" (say) perpendicular to the existing joists and then boarding on top of that?

Thanks, BraileTrail

[stuart noble]

If you're very lucky. I never have been.

Plenty strong enough.

No need to fix them at all if you go right to the the edges of the loft. If the long edge of each t&g panel rests on a joist, the whole thing can't move. If you're not doing the whole loft, you only need to lightly fix the outer boards. IME you usually end up laying the panels *across* the joists and wasting quite a bit because your joist centres are all over the place and, even if the first couple are ok, you find the long edge getting closer and closer to the edge of a joist. As you can't cut the chip lengthways without losing the tongue, crosscutting is a better bet. Get youself a cheap circular saw and make up a T square as a guide. It's a back breaking job, but not difficult.

[PoP]

I don't use screws myself - I whack in a couple of light nails to hold the board, then lay the section which is tongue and grooved, then whack another couple of nails in the final board of the section. These boards hold themselves in place - the tongue and groove is rough edged and trying to move a board slightly which is slotted in requires a fair bit of tapping with a hammer!

Cracking the plasterboard skim isn't a problem I've come across, and if the skim is that flakey then just walking on the rafters is going to cause that damage anyhow.

Using screws implies having to drill holes then waste time driving the screws home. For what purpose - to take the boards up again in the future? Why? In the majority of homes the loft space is to hold junk that you don't need to get hold of every day so visits to the loft are very infrequent. It's not like a regular floor where you want to solve a creak problem.

PoP

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[PoP]

That is actually quite good advice. However it can be useful to keep hold of those suitcases and similar items (ski equipment and so on?) which you use very seasonally, then not for the rest of the year. No point having that stuff hanging around the main living space IMHO.

PoP

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[Harry Bloomfield]

Richard wrote on Tuesday (17/02/2004) :

Generally true, but you should try to ensure that board end joints of both boards meet over the joists.

You might crack the ceiling below if you did. It is unlikely you would go through, but none the less you should not bounce about too much.

Four figures will be for a loft conversion, not a simple job of boarding out the loft. You do just intend it for an extra bit of storage for light weight items don't you?

Better and stronger to screw the boards down, they will then be easier to lift later to get access to cables etc.. Check the location of cables and pipes before attempting to fix the boards.

Lay the boards such that two adjacent runs of boards have the joints offset, a little like the bricks in a wall are offset. A good way to start, will be to install a proper light(s) first, you will need one later anyway.

[sam ende]

we have a partially boarded out loft, all the central to shoulder height area and i am thinkg of converting it bit by bit into an extra room, not for heavy usage, but maybe a spare bedroom, could i just extend the boarding, make walls et ? or do i need to have a differnt floor, or how should i go about it ? sammi

[PoP]

I wouldn't go for this myself - there's quite a bit of dust with glass fibre or rockwool floating around in a loft and that could be an irritant.

Plus lofts are usually not closed to the elements - there has to be some airflow to keep things shipshape, and there's insulation between the loft and living areas which will prevent it acclimatising to the same temperature as the rest of the house. In the winter it will get rather cold, in the summer rather hot.

Do you not like your visitors? ;)

PoP

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[Richard]

You don't work in Somerset do you ?? I'd happily pay someone else that kind of money to do it ....

[PoP]

I work on the principle of so long as travel is paid for.....

Now let's see. Somerset. I reckon it's about 3 days there and the same back again, making 7 days in all (I am allowing for popping home for lunch and tea breaks). Are you still interested? ;)

PoP

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[BillV]

DON'T use screws. I neighbour did that in a modern house and ended up with many cracked bedroom ceilings... Whereas the ones who nailed didn't

[Harry Bloomfield]

On 17/02/2004 sam ende opined:-

You can't do that. The floor would not likely be strong enough for this type of use, you would need to ensure proper access and a means of escape in case of fire. Basically any habitable room has to meet all the building regulations.

[Harry Bloomfield]

BillV wrote on Tuesday (17/02/2004) :

I fail to understand why that should be, unless the screws were installed with the use of a Manchester screwdriver.

[sam ende]

we do not have room for visitors ! :) we have purchased an ex-coucil 3 bed semi with a lot of garden and cul-de-sac but it needs a lot of work. we need to change the central heating from a back boiler to wall mounted in the kitchen system as then we get more room in the living room and 1 bedroom. we have a problem with damp i think as all the walls on the bottom floor seem to be getting wet from underneath; the plaster is 'blooming' dry and crumbling. we need to replace all the upstairs windows, some more urgently than others too and we don't know whether we should extend or how or whether we'd be better off with a loft conversion and a garage and good shed. but we definately need more room. we both work from home, my husband in computers and i as an artist. so i think maybe our 'best' option is to build a good double sized garge next to the house and use that as a combined office/atelier, as we could glaze the back wall too. but it does get difficult then for perhaps we would be better off doing a double floor extension but then it's only a council house so you do not want to spend more than the area is worth ( not that we could actuallly afford that, mind). and so decisions, decisions :)

sammi

[John Stumbles]

Or having a decent cordless to drive them straight home - I used Screwfix Goldscrews (not Turbogold) size 6 x 60 (50s would have done) and they went in a treat. Lot easier than hammering and ...

... when you find you've (OK: _I_'ve) laid a board wrong and do need to get it up again it's no more hassle than putting the cordless into reverse.

[John Stumbles]

Depends whose junk it is. I haven't boarded ours and it's still full of junk: mistake was putting in a loft ladder. SWMBO didn't like hoisting herself up off the top of the step ladder into the attic. :-/

[PoP]

I guess one of the tricks of the trade which I never adopted (but I did see a workman do a long time ago) is to hammer the screws in. That way you get the best of both worlds - instant hold down and also removability ;)

PoP

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