Laying Floor Joists

Flooring experts recommend installing flooring boards perpendicular to the floor joists in a house with a plywood subfloor.

Laying floor joists.

Once the beams are installed and either temporarily or permanently braced it s time to install the joists. Wood joists are structural framing members that are laid upright on edge and nailed equally spaced usually 16 inches on center onto the wall plates. Lay a plank or sheet of chipboard across the joists to give you a platform to kneel on while you work. Nail each end of each floor joists to the sill plates according to the manufactures requirements usually 3 10d nails floor joists attached to rim joist.

Dead load and live load. In fact vinyl plank flooring can be installed virtually anywhere even on top of existing flooring. Floor loads are described using two measurements. Dead load for residential construction is generally considered to be about 10 pounds per square foot.

Locate any under floor cables and pipes. Put the floor joists on the layout marks on the sill plate. Raised floors are superior to floors built on a slab mainly for the reason that they provide a space through which to install other components. Nobody with any sense actually lays out joists by measuring to their center.

The most common joist spacings are 12 16 and 24 inches on center. However these tasks are not discrete. Floor joists laid out between the rim joists. Installing them parallel creates the possibility that the floor will sag.

Joist span is also governed by the weight placed on the floor. To avoid confusion we mark an x on the side of the line to which the joist will be placed. Joists range in size from 2 x 6 to 2 x 12 based on the distance being spanned. If the uneven floor is due to floor joists that have warped or twisted over time or were incorrectly installed the only way to level the floor is to remove the subflooring and shim the joists.

Leave new floorboards in the room for 3 days to shrink or expand according to temperature and humidity. We lay out floor joists by marking lines corresponding to one face of the joist. Floor joists are horizontally oriented beams that make a frame on which to build a raised floor. Installing the joists involves pulling an initial layout of their locations and marking the house ledger rolling the lumber into place and installing rim joists.