Attic Flooring

When it comes to flooring an attic, best leave it to the experts. Your attic has probably the largest potential storage space in your house most people dismiss the idea of using their attic simply because they have no easy access in the first place.

Let’s start with the idea of using your attic for storage, first you need safe and easy access to your attic which means, you need a folding attic stairs or an attic ladder, next you need good lighting, then comes a large floor area and perhaps even a roof window for daylight and good ventilation.

Flooring the attic is perhaps the most daunting task mainly because attic joists are usually not level, and there are fixed obstacles in the way, timbers, wiring, insulation, pipes and much more, every attic is different.

At Al’s attic ladders we are all carpenters we have built traditional roofs from scratch and assembled truss roofs, so for us attic flooring is very straight forward. Normally we start with what the customer wants, often a small area of flooring around the trapdoor will suffice, such as the amount provided with our attic packs 1, 2 and 3 Standard loft boards made from flooring grade chipboard will suffice, after all they are manufactured for attics and comply with EU standards and they work well. They are manufactured with a tongue and grove joint for good fitting so what’s the point in wasting your money on more expensive materials, this type of loft floor is screwed securely down to the attic joists.

Flooring all of your attic or large areas of your attic is a little different in the sense that you have to deal with more obstacles mainly your attic insulation, wiring and pipes therefore we recommend raising your attic floor level with thick batons, this allows for extra insulation if required.
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The batons are screwed down at 60cm centres,  packers are placed to level the batons, they are raised above pipes are wires where possible, extra insulation can be placed between the batons, but not compressed (as the insulation would lose some U-value) When this is completed large sheets of Plywood or equivalent material is securely screwed down across the batons and locked together at the joints. This type of flooring is for heavy use, wires and pipes can be accessed at a later date if required by unscrewing the fixings, nails are never used.