8489 Restoring an Original First Floor

Hi,

I need to replace a first floor. It is simply wooden floorboards laid upon the wooden beams. The floorboards are very soft and pliable, witch open drops debris on the room below…

I am keen to do the work myself, and although the posts I have already read discuss steel beams, I want to retain the original wooden beams that seem fine. The existing beams are around 2 metres apart, so I am not sure if it would be better to put thin boards down, then some form of concrete, or thick boards and thin concrete, or other options if anyone can advise me of some. I also intend to remove all the plaster from the walls and redo it, since before I bought it, the roof had leaked into the plaster, and has made turned the walls into powder that can not hold nails, screws peels off with the hand. The roof has since been fully restored so it is water tight.

I want to do as much work myself on the house, so the simpler and traditional the better.

P.S. Happy New year to all! :smile:

Regards

Category
Building/Renovation

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Sun, 12/30/2007 - 17:57

Sounds like you need an engineers advice to get your specification right. If you check some of the 'floors and ceilings' threads you'll find at least one expert (e.g David from Our Toscana) who has the necessary expertise. For what it's worth, there's absolutely no reason why the timber beams should be replaced with steel. However, I wouldn't have expected beams at 2 metre centres to provide enough support for floor boarding directly on top. Neither would I expect such boards to be stiff enough to form a strong enough shuttering for the kind of reinforced concrete layer you would have to add. Perhaps that's why the existing boards are flexing! Don't take my word for it though! One metre intervals would almost certainly provide adequate support for floorboarding as you describe. This is how my own floors are being constructed, though there is also an anti seismic RC screed bolted in to the timber work and walls. A couple of extra main beams would offset you the cost of joists, whilst avoiding any loss of height in the room above.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Mon, 12/31/2007 - 06:43

Hi Lupo,

I just double checked the distance between the beams, and it's around 1m, not 2!

Thanks for your advise!

Regards

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Mon, 12/31/2007 - 07:27

Sorry am I missing something? Why not just lay another floor on top of the boards? If there is no sign of decay or rot would this not be better? Either a new wood floor or tiles?

We also like the natural jute fibre carpeting we have here in the UK and intend simply laying this on top of our cement tile floor upstairs.It needs an underlay to make it look nice.There are some fairly thin ceramic tiles out ther too that woul work.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Mon, 12/31/2007 - 07:47

Okay Rafey, with one metre centres you don't need an engineer just some nice new boards! As Manopello says, unless you need to put in anti seismic measures, you don't really need the concrete screed unless you want it to lay tiles on.