How To Floor An Attic Plywood

If you plan to finish the floor in the attic and turn the room into a living space however you should always use 3 4 inch.

How to floor an attic plywood.

To floor an attic you ll need to install a sub floor for support before laying your plywood floor. Attics with existing flooring. The thinner plywood is acceptable when the joist spacing is 16 inches. In that case you will need to use 3 4 thick plywood.

1 x 6 3 spruce is a step up from pallet quality wood but makes a fine usable floor in an unfinished attic space. First you ll need to measure the area you want to floor so you can calculate how much wood you ll require. Don t use 7 16 osb as it is intended for external sheathing and isn t strong enough to be used as a floor. You ll have to construct a wooden frame or sub floor with boards 16 inches apart to provide extra support for the floor.

The plywood should be perpendicular to the joists so that a signal sheet spans multiple. Alternatively your attic may already have some sort of floor but this doesn t necessarily mean you can build rooms. Another option is to skip the plywood flooring altogether and use dimensional lumber. Build a frame on 16 centers perpendicular to the attic floor joists.

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. 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 storage you can install inch plywood or. The previous homeowner may have simply covered the joists with plywood to use the space for storage. Carry a piece of plywood to one of the far corners of the attic and lay it on top of the installed boards.

An attic can be floored with 1 2 cdx plywood if it is being used only for storage. Full the spaces between the frame members with insulation. Screw the frame to the joists to secure it in place making sure not to screw into electrical wires.