Putting Plywood Floor In Attic
This will make the installation of these new joists easier while spreading the weight across several joists.
Putting plywood floor in attic. If you plan to finish the floor in the attic and turn the room into a living space however you. Alternatively your attic may already have some sort of floor but this doesn t necessarily mean you can build rooms. The previous homeowner may have simply covered the joists with plywood to use the space for storage. You put the insulation down first and let s say you have 2x8s for your floor joists in the attic.
The thinner plywood is acceptable when the joist spacing is 16 inches. The plywood should be laying on top of the subfloor with no overhang. Carry a piece of plywood to one of the far corners of the attic and lay it on top of the installed boards. To give yourself enough space to ensure adequate insulation under the flooring construct a riser of 2 x 4 s in the attic over the existing joists.
The plywood should be perpendicular to the joists so that a signal sheet spans multiple. So you can put 8 inches of insulation down then put the plywood over that. You need 3 4 inch plywood. Once the boards are in place place more screws placed 16 inches 40 64 cm apart to hold the plywood to the subfloor frame.
The joists for this riser should run perpendicular to the existing ceiling joists. It might seem impossible to haul it up to the attic. To make the job easier use a circular saw to cut the plywood sheet first into 2 2 8 strips which will be much easier to handle. Because the simplest and cheapest way to insulate an attic is to add material to the floor.
Cut the plywood into manageable strips about 10 inches wide to make the job easier. Plan to pull up the flooring and layer new insulation on top of the old. Maneuvering heavy 4 x 8 sheets of plywood or osb oriented strand board up to an unfinished attic is sometimes like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. But if the floor is covered in plywood you can t stuff enough insulation beneath it to do the job sufficiently not even in warm climates.
Now in your particular part of the country you re going to want a lot more insulation than that. Installing attic flooring for light storage only 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. Install two by four blocking between joists or wherever needed to support edges of the plywood that do not have support from the bottom.