Adding Attic Flooring

In the future you may want to construct a small apartment or master suite in the attic.

Adding attic flooring.

Attic dek is a specially designed attic floor system that consists of 16 or 24 squares attached to the top of ceiling joists. Another way to add attic flooring is to secure plywood sheets to the floor. Purchase half inch 1 27 cm thick plywood to act as your flooring. There are also synthetic floorings available from several different manufacturers.

Go into the attic to inspect how wiring is routed through joists or on top of them for example. Walk to one end of the attic by carefully stepping only on the wooden ceiling joists. The ceiling load may include items like drywall ducts recessed lights bathroom fans and attic insulation. Standard joist spacing for the installation of attic flooring materials is 16 inches on center oc meaning the distance from the center of one joist to the center of the next joist is 16 inches.

Don t add flooring until you review wiring and plumbing needs for the future. You ll need to make sure that the plywood can fit through your attic door. Attic dek flooring provides additional storage space that supports up to 250 pounds making it easier than ever to get those cluttered spaces organized. Attics that have no flooring unless expressly built so an attic s joists are meant for carrying the load of the ceiling below and related elements collectively known as the dead load.

There is a lot of space very large areas. Build a new floor base with this in mind. Hiring a contractor to do the job will roughly triple the cost as you have to pay for their time and labor. This will add a much more stable platform to your attic flooring and can act as a subfloor if you decide to finish off the attic in the future.

Extreme care should be used when working in an unfloored attic. From what i ve been reading it looks to be ill advised to add flooring if the roof was constructed with trusses instead of rafters one such site i have no idea what these are. Adding flooring to your attic is a relatively low cost project running about 5 12 per square foot about 190 for a 10 x 10 area if you do it yourself. Because the simplest and cheapest way to insulate an attic is to add material to the floor.

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. Place a 2 inch by 3 inch board directly on top of the joist nearest to the edge of the attic with its largest. Plan to pull up the flooring and layer new insulation on top of the old.