Replacing Floor Structure Upstairs

andyb

I have a small room upstairs that measures about 3.5m in length by about 2m in width. The house was built in 1926 and the distance between floor and ceiling is only 4 inches unlike today's regulations that require about 8inch joists. The size of joists in most rooms in the house is 4"x4". However, in this particular room, for reasons that are not clear, the joist are more like roof rafters at 3"x2" and as a result the floor has sagged. I had intended to convert this room to a bathroom, so a strong floor is essential, but either way I need to figure out a remedy. The house is a bungalow with an upstairs, so this room has a sloping ceiling and it would be possible to access the void where the ceiling meets the inner wall, but not possible to reach the outer wall from inside due to purlin in the way. I would like to ask if anyone has come across needing to replace an upstairs floor before with the sort of sizes I have mentioned. Without going to stell, is there a new form of engineered product I could use to reframe the floor with reduced size of joists but still be in safety and regs.

Andy

cortell

Wow. A floor framed with 3x2??? I'd love to see a picture of that. That's not even an acceptable roof rafter in areas without snow loads! Needless to say, I've got no idea how you'd correct that without some major restructuring

Daniel Holzman

Talk about mixing units, you measure the floor size in meters, and the joists in inches. Is this property in Burma, where they still use English units? I always say, give him 2.54 centimeters, he'll take 1609.344 meters. But I digress.

You have 4x4 inch joists. I don't think I have ever seen that, but it certainly sounds interesting. Then you say you have 3"x2" joists in one room, "more like roof rafters". I cannot imagine a 3"x2" roof rafter holding up anywhere.

As for reframing, you would need steel joists to have even a prayer of fitting inside a 4 inch space and meet any kind of code. More likely you would have to completely reframe the house using more conventional sized lumber, like 2x10 joists. Or you could rent the house out to midgets with pint size furniture (not don't bust on me for being politically incorrect, should I say little people? elves?)

goosebarry

If there is a solution it will require an engineer. I think the bigger issue is there is no way you will fit plumbing, particularly waste, into 3 inches. So you'll have waste pipes in the room below. So you might as well increase the size of the joists.

goosebarry

My favorite is England where fuel efficiency is liters/100miles.

cortell

Building a bulkhead is easy. Changing the joist depth in an existing floor is an extremely complex problem. The whole situation is quite perplexing, though. None of it really adds up.

Gary in WA

Where are you located?

Pictures would help; How to attach a photo to a post

Gary

P.S. Welcome to the forums!

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joecaption

So your saying you have a room that's 12' X 6' with a 4" ceiling, hmm.