Building An Attic Floor

The beams you ll be installing the subflooring on top of.

Building an attic floor.

Considering usable floor space. The headroom in the attic will determine how much usable floor space you have. Full the spaces between the frame members with insulation. First you ll need to measure the area you want to floor so you can calculate how much wood you ll require.

You also need to ensure that the joist spacing is adequate. While local codes vary many communities will not permit the ceiling in a finished. You ll have to construct a wooden frame or sub floor with boards 16 inches apart to provide extra support for the floor. Build a frame on 16 centers perpendicular to the attic floor joists.

In many cases ceiling joists for dead loads are designed to carry 10 pounds per square foot. It provides a stable surface for finished flooring material such as laminate. An attic may also be called a sky parlor or a garret because attics fill the space between the ceiling of the top floor of a building and the slanted roof they are known for being awkwardly shaped spaces with exposed rafters and difficult to reach corners. Screw the frame to the joists to secure it in place making sure not to screw into electrical wires.

If your home was built with standard conventional lumber your risk of causing structural imbalance isn t nearly as high. An attic sometimes referred to as a loft is a space found directly below the pitched roof of a house or other building. To floor an attic you ll need to install a sub floor for support before laying your plywood floor. Joist dimensions are only part of the equation.

Man installing fiberglass insulation in attic. However you still need to be sensible when installing an attic floor. A subfloor is a stiff wood underlayment secured directly the the flooring joists.