Putting Down Plywood In Attic

While you can nail the flooring into place a screwdriver will countersink screws and create a squeak free finish.

Putting down plywood in attic.

While nailing would be safe for the floor you are laying it could cause problems for the drywall and texture on the ceiling of the room below. Some screwed others not. Use an electric screwdriver to install the flooring base. This will add a much more stable platform to your attic flooring and can act as a subfloor if you decide to finish off the attic in the future.

Another way to add attic flooring is to secure plywood sheets to the floor. I assume 3 4 inch but there are many types brands to choose from. To make the job easier use a circular saw to cut the plywood sheet first into 2 2 8 strips which will be much easier to handle. The panels are made with tongue in groove long sides so that it is easy to join them together.

Maneuvering heavy 4 x 8 sheets of plywood or osb oriented strand board up to an unfinished attic is sometimes like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. Carry a piece of plywood to one of the far corners of the attic and lay it on top of the installed boards. You need 3 4 inch plywood. This is a particle board plywood already cut into two foot panels for ease in getting the material into your attic.

Like the riser the plywood decking should be screwed down rather than nailed for the same reason. Plan to pull up the flooring and layer new insulation on top of the old. My attic is located above my garage and currently the former owner had random pieces of plywood placed up there. Because the simplest and cheapest way to insulate an attic is to add material to the floor.

If plywood or particleboard is slightly warped it may pull loose if you nail it down. There are also synthetic floorings available from several different manufacturers. The attic in my house just has some plywood on the truss floor which serves as a great storage floor. Installing attic flooring for light storage only if your attic joists won t bear the weight necessary to finish out a living space but the engineer cleared them to support floor decking for light.

The plywood should be perpendicular to the joists so that a signal sheet spans multiple. But if the floor is covered in plywood you can t stuff enough insulation beneath it to do the job sufficiently not even in warm climates. The thinner plywood is acceptable when the joist spacing is 16 inches. Using a nail gun is no guarantee that boards won t pop up.