How To Finish Your Attic Floor

In that sense finishing your attic can feel like stumbling across undiscovered land in your own home.

How to finish your attic floor.

Once you have a permit install subfloor panels over the floor joists so you can lay down flooring. Note that you will need to check with your local licensing department about required permits or inspections. To floor an attic you ll need to install a sub floor for support before laying your plywood floor. Attics with existing flooring.

The previous homeowner may have simply covered the joists with plywood to use the space for storage. You might be tempted to throw up drywall finish the floors and call it a day. First you ll need to measure the area you want to floor so you can calculate how much wood you ll require. Flooring ceiling and wall materials and other elements will reduce headroom and floor space and it s the finished area that matters.

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. Installing attic flooring in your unfinished attic will help you with storage problems. Floor support attic floors generally need to be reinforced with additional joists and a subfloor. Most codes require a specified minimum amount of headroom and it s tough to meet this requirement when insulating a finished attic especially since most codes require insulation equal to r 38 or more.

Finished is important to remember when you re measuring an empty attic space. However finishing an attic comes with its own quirks expenses and tricks to maximize its value. When space is limited sometimes there s nowhere to go but up. The flooring can pave the way for you to be able to finish off the attic in the future and can help you access your attic by making it easier to walk.

The lyons used a web of 16 inch deep engineered trusses to accommodate wiring plumbing and ductwork then topped the plywood subfloor with oak or tile. Alternatively your attic may already have some sort of floor but this doesn t necessarily mean you can build rooms. The basic space requirements for a finished attic boil down to the sizes of the finished rooms. Before finishing an attic get the necessary permits from your local housing commission so you don t get in trouble later on if you try to sell your house.