Flooring a loft in an old cottage Information and advice on lofts and loft conversions. Find solutions and post your questions here...

[steve2011]

Hi all,

I'm planning to lay some flooring in my loft. It's an old cottage and the ceiling below is lath & plaster attached to small (approx 2" x 2") timbers. These in turn are attached to the bottoms of chunky (3" x 10") oak beams running in the opposite direction. The distance between oak beams is 1.6M.

If I lay new joists (50x100) across the tops of the oaks, I lose some valuable height so I'm considering using hangers to drop them down to the same level so they sit flush with the top of the oak beams. Is this a good idea? If so, should I make them absolutely flush? I'm concerned that the part of the hanger across the top of the oaks (and the nails in it) could cause issues getting the TnG chipboard flooring level.

Many thanks for any assistance
Steve

[stoneyboy]

steve2011,
I'm considering using hangers to drop them down to the same level so they sit flush with the top of the oak beams. Is this a good idea - YES.
Don't worry about levels too much being oak beams they will be all over the place as far as levels are concerned.
end

[happyhacker]

Make sure that the new joists do not press on the ceiling OR fix the ceiling to them as well to give longer term support (old ceilings will sag over time). Last floor I put in I doubled the numbe of joists to make sure there was no give with the new imposed loads. I would also try to laterally fix the old ceiling beams to the new joists in tha way strengthening everything.