Rough Guide On Sizing Floor Joists Steel

When building a house or even a deck it is important to confirm you have the correct joist sizes spans and spacing before you get started.

Rough guide on sizing floor joists steel. Floor joists or beams provide the below surface support for the wood subfloor of a room. Live load is weight of furniture wind snow and more. Bailey c joist floor system components provide an economical lightweight alternative to open web steel joists engineered wood eye joists cast in place or hollow core floor assembly systems. The floor joist spacing is the distance between the centers of any two installed joists.

The idea was and still is to create a better load bearing system to support building structures and to facilitate the open floor plans that became increasingly popular toward the turn of the century. Lg steel framing comes in numerous depths analogous to 2x4 2x6 2x8 and so on gauges the thickness of the metal and flange sizes the width of the top of the joist like lumber s 2 by dimension. So the house dimensions will now be 24 x 13. Since the example house we are designing for is 12 feet wide we need to find in the floor joist span table a joist size and centering that can span 12 or wider.

Common sense tells you that large floor joists can carry more load and spacing joists closer together also increases the load bearing capacity of a floor. The size joist you must use will depend on the loading. Light gauge steel joists or trusses 6 deep span 10. 2 grade of douglas fir are indicated below.

Depending on loads and spans c joists are typically spaced at 12 16 or 24. Be sure to properly draw the corrugation of the decking as its proper dimensions assure its rigidity. Maximum floor joist span for no. Joist span and spacing is set by your local building code.

The widest span in the floor joist span table in part 2 of this tutorial module showed that floor joists can span 17 2 if they are 2 x 12s spaced 12 o c. Let s expand our house beyond that 17 2 span capability to 24 feet wide. All play a role in determining the capacity of the joist. Though joists may be any size that you desire using typical floor joist and beam specifications ensures that you can find hardware to fit the joists and that the floor provides adequate support for furniture and other items in a room.

1 psf lb f ft 2 47 88 n m 2. While most residential construction uses 2x8 joists with 16 inch spacing there are many other factors you need to consider when determining the proper joist span length. Addition to the decking depth a concrete floor of 2 3 must be poured on top of the floor. Dead load weight of structure and fixed loads 10 lbs ft 2.

But larger is not always better when builders are constructing a home or adding a room addition. 1 ft 0 3048 m. C joists come in a variety of depths flange sizes and steel thicknesses.