Loft Flooring Question

[chris.wilding3]

Hello Everyone,

I need to lay some boarding down in my loft an area of about 2 x 3m ideally, just for storage of the usual suspects, Christmas trees, old toys, clothes and suitcases. You know the stuff !

Although capable of doing the work I'm not really sure what I need to do. If I explain the current set-up could someone please be kind enough to suggest the next steps. It doesn't need to be ultra smart, just quick and cheap ideally.

Ok so at the moment there are a load of small rafters (3x2?) which are approx 1ft apart. Over the top of these are number of larger 4x2 rafters. These rafters combined give a decent height for the newly laid insulation.

The span between the larger "top" rafters is 1.7m. I want to lay flooring across the top of these rafters but clearly I cannot span

1.7m. What should I do ? Should I lay more 4x2 rafters in between the existing ones to reduce the span to 60cms ?

And one really daft question, how would I fix new rafters across the top of the existing ones, do they just sit there, do they have brackets or do they just have a nail through them

As you can tell, I'm flundering a bit, so help appreciated.

Chris

[dcbwhaley]

Are the top rafters at right angles to the lower rafters or are they parallel and on top of selcted lower rafters.

[wildey]

They are at right angles. The smaller rafters run at 1ft intervals across the width of the loft and then the larger ones sit on top at right angles, with the interval being about 1.7m

[dcbwhaley]

Put additional 4x2 between the existing ones on about 400mm spacing (425mm is the nearest divisor of 1.7m). Lay your loft board across those screwed to every 4x2, including the existing ones. that should forn a fairly solid "raft". But remember that the load bearing capacity is only that of the original 3x2s so no jumping up and down :-)

And don't use nails. Hammering is likey to disturb the ceiling.

[wildey]

Thanks very much, appreciate the advice. Can you please just let me know finally how I should fix the 4x2's across the existing rafters if I can't hammer nails into them ? Thanks.

[Andy Burns]

In the better DIY shops you will find a recent invention called screws, be warned that your hammer probably won't be compatible and you'll need to upgrade it ;-)

[Guy King]

The message from "wildey" contains these words:

Just lay them. Once the boards are in place they're not going to go anywhere.

If desperate you could always screw little noggins to the existing rafters to stop the new ones sliding about.

[Jan Larsen]

Hehe, nice..

On a side note, what is the general consensus on how to fix with screws in this particular kind of scenario, 5-6" long screws through the whole thing? 4" screws in at an angle or usiing metal brackets and say 1.5" screws?

//J

[Guy King]

The message from Jan Larsen contains these words:

Think about what loads will be on it once it's finished. If you can manage to imagine a likely side-load then it'll need fixing. Otherwise, just sit them on and let the boarding hold it all together. It's only a loft!

[John Rumm]

In this circumstance I would drill a bigish hole (i.e. large enough to swallow your screw head) 2" deep, then drill right through with a smaller drill - thus countersinking the screws by a good distance. That way you can use shorter screws, and there is no danger of trying to screw the floor down right into another screw that is holding a joist.

[Stuart Noble]

Bloody hell. It's a loft. You only need lightly fix the outside boards, and not even then if they're up against the wall.

[John Rumm]

The OP only has 3x2 as the main loft joists though. So fixing the new boards and spacers will help the load sharing.