How to Build a Floor

Building a Floor or Framing a sub-floor for a home requires some construction skills. This article will walk you through the basics for building a floor.

Things You'll Need

• measuring square, string line, tape measure, saw, hummer.

Instructions

1. 

   After your foundation is squared up and your ready to build the floor the first step is to set any foundation steel that might be needed for the project. Then you will want to set up your stair hole, its importation that you get the opening right so that you have the right amount of head room as your walking down and or up the stair case. [standard 8' basement walls would require a stair hole 6'8 long] After your stair hole is all set you can run the rim board. NOTE: that rim board can also be ran after all the floor joist are set.

2. 

   Run all the common floor joist, Its importation that you start the layout for the floor joist 15-1/4" and go, then mark every 16" down the way each layout is being ran. Some floor joist like seen in the drawings in this article require the joist to brake [or sister] on the steel because of sizes available for standard lumber, other floor joist like [engineered TGI joist] would run front to back one full peace.

3. 

   Lookout blocks, these are ran along side of the floor joist only for outside walls, the reason for these blocks is for transfering load from the studs to the foundation. [all homes should be built with "stud over joist" for transfering roof and floor loads from above]

4. 

   Last if any floor bridging is being used between the joist run them down the center of each side of the steel or center of joist. After the floor is ready to sheet, start the sheeting on the longest run you can with the grove side out. After the first roll is ran stagger the seems center of each sheet, be sure to glue and nail/screw the flooring in as you go. The only joists that shouldn't be glued is the joist that make up the stair hole you should only nail/screw the joist in around the stair hole only after your sure that it is square and going to work for the project.

Tips & Warnings

• plan for success, because no plan is a sure plan to fail.

Resources

• Get a Material Estimate made online