Make Sure Attic Is Sturdy Before Adding Laminate Floors

Adding a floor to an attic can increase storage space or create a new room.

Make sure attic is sturdy before adding laminate floors.

Sturdy flooring material can also make an excellent shelf. Boarding the attic floor will add to the structure s stability just as plywood does and give you a surface to store things on and walk on. The methods we ll cover make floors stiffer but not necessarily stronger. Before you start make sure that your floor is designed to hold the weight of a floor and stored items.

Not only will this minimize heat loss or gain in the attic but it will create a good sound deadening layer to muffle the sound of footsteps to the level below. Sistering is the process of adding a new joist next to each existing joist. If your floors are bouncy and also noticeably sagging they probably are too weak. Before you start creating a floor for your attic you must make sure that it can handle the additional load.

Strengthening attic joists for live loads by sistering. If the attic joists are not adequate one way to strengthen the floor for live loads is to sister the old joists. You can stiffen the floor in just one room or in as many rooms as you like. Then you ll need to build a grid like structure that can hold up the plywood flooring.

The ideal solution is to make sure the joist cavities below the attic floor sheathing are fully filled with bat fiberglass or blown in cellulose or styrofoam insulation.