Putting Down Plywood In Attic

Put on work gloves safety glasses and a dust mask before entering the attic.

Putting down plywood in attic.

If you try to put the plywood flooring directly on the joists it will crush the insulation down and you ll end up with the equivalent of r 15 regardless of what you started out with. 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. Purchase half inch 1 27 cm thick plywood to act as your flooring. Use a zippered insulated tent to keep the enclosure draft free attic tent at 7 attic cover insulator 120.

Find out why you must first put down insulation before you put down plywood in your attic. Installing plywood for example will create a smooth floor to lay carpet in the future. However you will have much better success and use your material much more efficiently if you start in the center. To solve this problem add another course of 2 x 4 or even 2 x 6 stringers either on top of the existing joists or attached to the sides of the truss.

Wear long sleeves and pants since fiberglass insulation irritates the skin if it comes into contact with it. Measure the plywood and attic door. Attic hatch or door. Maneuvering heavy 4 x 8 sheets of plywood or osb oriented strand board up to an unfinished attic is sometimes like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole.

Take the measurements for your subfloor and measure enough plywood so that you can cover the entire frame. Pull down stair or ladder. You ll need to make sure that the plywood can fit through your attic door. It s possible to use other materials but plywood or particleboard on sale is likely to be less expensive than other wood materials or products.

Affix rigid foam insulation to the attic side of the hatch or door. 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. The most common temptation in laying down attic flooring is to start in a corner and begin installing the plywood sheets or wood flooring from there. The decision regarding the thickness of plywood to use for the subfloor in the attic has a lot to do with how you intend to use the attic and it also depends on the spacing of the ceiling joists.