Sunday, July 27, 2008

Weekend 4, Sunday

Ugh. No real progress made as we discovered we had a dilemna. We had decided several weeks ago that we would put down tile flooring in lieu of the linoleum that had been there before. Today we were reading our book on bathroom remodeling and learned that our floor joists have way too much deflection to support a tile floor. The subfloor also has too much deflection. James read a lot of websites and thinks that if we add 1/2" plywood on top of our 5/8" OSB the subfloor will be okay. I will review mechanics of materials from college and see if I can come up with a way of reinforcing the joists. It seems to me that adding a steel angle along the length of the joist might just do the trick. Thoughts?? But, it now looks like we'll be ripping up more of the subfloor.

2 comments:

A. Batzer said...

I always forget to take the before pictures.
Tile is worth it if possible.

Anonymous said...

Dann said...
Okay, this entry started a 10-minute conversation in my office about floors, subfloors, structural engineering, etc. Here are our compiled recommendations:
- to reduce deflection, "scab" a 2x4 onto the bottom of the joists (I will email you a scan of our sketch)
- no 1/2-inch plywood, use concrete backer board, this won't help too much with the deflection, but will help with moisture and gives you the best surface for tiling
- buy a masonry blade for your saw(s) to cut the backer board, despite what the instructions say, it doesn't cut like drywall and you can't cut inside corners without them