Sleeper wall stuff

Hey

I'm relatively new to anything vaguely practical but am learning a quick as I can as I have an old Victorian Terrace to do up.

My latest project (for project read mistake, I tend to get overexcite and make big holes in things before I stop to think :) was in rippin up the nasty tiles on the floor surrounding the fireplace in the dinin room.

It seems as if some bright spark had decided to fill the underfloo cavity at this point with rubble and then cement and tile over it. After removing all the crap and dealing with the obvious damp issue this had caused I've now been left with nice well ventilated underfloo cavity with the unfortunate side effect of a small area of floor (abou

6' by 2') with no floorboards.

The muppets that filled the floor cut off the joists that would hav previously supported boards in from of the fireplace so I now need t build a short sleeper wall parallel to those existing to support shor joists needed to hold boards over the area...now comes my problem...

How do I go about building a sleeper wall? From looking around an reading up on the subject I know I need to lay a concrete foundation then build a honeycombe wall, which is topped by a wooden wall plate t hold the joists. I have three main questions though...firstly my brothe (who has worked on sites so feels he is the font of all knowledge) ha informed me that I don't need to mortar the bricks together, is h right (I'd have thought if you were building a wall to support a floo you'd want to stick the bloody bricks together atleast :) and secondly how do you fix the wall plate to the wall? Screw it, nail it, cement i or leave it just sat there? Finally, where does the dpc come in... know you should have it under the wall plate, but if you do how agai do you fix the wall plate to the wall without piercing the dpc?

Sorry for the overlong first post and for sounding like a bit of a di muppet, but it's all a learning experience :p

Cheers

Mat

-- redtigerseye

Reply to
redtigerseye
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That's how it was originally built. The rubble is normally retained by a wall under the floor.

I can't picture what you mean. Which direction do the floorboards and sleeper walls run relative to the fireplace? Typically, you need an extra joist across the front of the fireplace, which sits on the wall place on the riser walls which retained the rubble you emptied out. These wall plates can go rotten, as damp can soak up the hearth rubble when the fire is no longer used. That's the usual reason for emptying out the rubble and flooring across the top.

Reply to
Andrew Gabriel

? Assuming you are saying, you have removed the hearth completely and now wish to floorboard upto the chimney breast wall, the easiest way would be to lay 2 new joists on joist hangers rather the fluffing about trying to make a sleeper wall.

(This does make the assumption that the existing joists run across the chimney wall)

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Reply to
Mark

Even if they don't you could have a couple of stringer joists and a small area of floor boarded at right angles to the existing boards.

Reply to
John Rumm

If they were to run in line with the hearth you would have 5/6 joist ends that would have rested on the hearth wall plate, every time I have come across this in small

Reply to
Mark

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