Add Strength To Floor Joists

Doubling the thickness of joists by adding material to their sides increases strength and stiffness.

Add strength to floor joists.

If your home is more than 20 years old your floor joists are most likely solid wood 2x8s 2x10s or 2x12s. The extra two inches of vertical distance when a floor is framed with 2 x 10 joists rather than 2 x 12s can be quite important for example. But larger is not always better when builders are constructing a home or adding a room addition. Repeat this process every 24 to 36 inches down the.

Learn how to fix your bouncy floor with the four methods listed below. Nail the block in place with 16d nails on each side of the blocking. Follow the rules to keep your floor solid. Remembering his boyhood kitchen tom makes sure that any new floor he builds is rock solid.

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. Doing so strengthens weak joists and can help straighten sagging joists. Joist span and spacing is set by your local building code. Lay the new sheets perpendicular to the floor joists and orient panel ends over joists.

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. Details to minimize the chance of future squeaks and to help secure the new floor sheath ing start by spreading a generous amount of construction adhesive over the old planks. Floor joist bridging is critical to the structural strength of a floor as shown in figure 1. Yet it is not uncommon to find bridging not properly installed or missing all together.

How to sister a floor joist. In the case of 2x6 joists you can pair them up with additional 2x6 joists by nailing them together side by side. Measure the width between the span of two joists. Sistering joists means beefing them up with additional material.

Proper bridging distributes the load on the floor to other joists and over time prevents floors from sagging and squeaking do to floor joists twisting and warping. You can notch and bore joists without sacrificing critical strength but you must follow the rules. Sistering is the process of adding a new joist next to each existing joist. If the attic joists are not adequate one way to strengthen the floor for live loads is to sister the old joists.

The notching and boring rules of thumb for solid lumber are shown in fig. Photo by richard howard 4 ways to stop the bounce. Bottom of the floor joists instead of or in addition to being installed on top. Cut a piece of 2 by 6 or 2 by 8 lumber according to the width.