Repair & Improve

Attics And Basement Floors

Ideas and innovations from America’s popular home improvement radio team

by Tom Kraeutler & Leslie Segrete

Attics and basements are tough spaces to work in.  Since both areas are outside the “living space” of your home, finding the right floor requires special consideration.

Flooring your attic can make it a perfect place for storage.  But doing so the wrong way means that you could weaken your structure, squash your insulation or worse; find yourself with one foot planted firmly through the sheetrock ceiling below!   Basements aren’t much better. Being underground, they are often damp, cold and can turn some flooring choices into a wrinkled, moldy, mess.

Fortunately, there are flooring solutions for both areas that work well in the often harsh and unheated environments.  Here’s where to begin:

Attics
When medical students complete the many years of study it takes to become a doctor, they ceremoniously take the “Hippocratic Oath” at graduation.  This oath includes well known words that homeowners who are considering flooring their attics are wise to remember:  first do no harm!

For the most part, attics were not designed as storage spaces.  They are a part of the raw underbelly of structure that holds a house together and protects it from the elements.  Because of this, installing a floor always involves some level of disturbance.

If the roof structure of your home was designed with prefabricated trusses, your attic was most-certainly not designed for any storage.  There are several reasons for this.  First, adding weight to the top of the bottom 2x4 that makes up the truss is a big no-no.  Roof trusses are specifically designed to take the weight of the roof (and the snow, wind, rain, etc.) and distribute it downward and outward to the load-bearing exterior walls through a series of interconnecting wood framing pieces known as “chords.”  Adding storage to any other part of this finely tuned structural marvel risks weakening the roof system.

If your home was built with standard conventional lumber, your risk of causing structural imbalance isn’t nearly as high; however, you still need to be sensible.  Remember that the ceiling joists were designed to hold up a ceiling and not to support a floor loaded with your Encyclopedia Britannica collection!

Lastly, your home’s energy efficiency almost always suffers when the attic is converted for storage.  Since an average attic needs 10 inches or so of insulation, the insulation is always thicker than the ceiling joists or trusses.  As such, adding a floor can cause the insulation to compress, thus squeezing out the insulating ability of the fiberglass.

With all these challenges, you might be starting to think installing a useful floor is impossible.  We’ll it is, but you’ll need a dose of common sense to execute the job properly.  Here are a few tips to help you and your house get through the job unscathed.

• Platforms Don’t Have to be Plywood – Maneuvering  a heavy, 4 x 8 sheet of plywood up to the an attic is sometimes like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole.  To make the job easier on you, cut the plywood first into (2) 2x8 strips which will be much easier to handle.  Another option is the skip the plywood all together and use dimensional lumber.  1 x 6 #3 spruce is a step up from pallet quality wood but makes a fine useable floor in an unfinished space.
• Don’t Waste Energy - If you don’t need a lot of storage, think of just flooring part of the attic, such as a small section around the attic opening.  This way you can preserve the maximum amount of energy efficiency in the rest of the home.  Since homes tend to be colder the closer you get the exterior walls, keeping this floored area to the inside center of the attic is smart.
• High Tech Deck – Another innovative option that is specifically deigned for attic flooring is a product called “Attic Deck.” (see www.atticdek.com).  Attic deck is an specially designed attic floor system that consists of 16” or 24” squares that attach directly to the top of floors joists.  The sections are lightweight, easy to handle and resemble floor grates that provide plenty of ventilation for insulation below.  They attach with just a few screws and allow you to build a safe, secure storage platform in just minutes.

Also, if the insulation is thicker than your ceiling joists, you can raise the height of the joists to above the insulation by attaching 2x3’s to their top edge before you attach the floor boards.

Basement Floors
Imagine a day when the basement can be an additional place of retreat and solitude from the busy world around you, and oh yeah, your family.  The basement does not have to be that dark and unwelcoming place that you and the entire clan avoid for fear of the boogie man.  With today’s amazing advancements in flooring and home decorating, that lower level can be your favorite retreat.

You might think because of the dampness and coolness of the basement your choices are limited but, you can design as big as your dreams or budget will allow.  Manufacturers want you to enjoy this space and offer plenty of wonderful flooring choices to help you do just that.

For example,  the following products have take dampness into consideration while not sacrificing one bit on style or design.  Your choices range  from hardwood to tile and everything in between:

• Luxury Tile – Adura is a high fashion, high performance rigid tile that offers whatever look you desire.  Made by Mannington, the tiles are16” x 16” wide and a solid 5mm thick, with patterns that range from Tumbled Stone with realistic grout lines to slate or even sisal and grass cloth. (See www.mannington.com )  Using adhesive and standard tools, these tiles are installed the same way as you would install any vinyl floor tile.  Depending on the condition of your existing floor you can install them directly on top of concrete, sheet vinyl, or even over floors with radiant heat. So, to give your inner designer the freedom to mix and match, choose any of these beautifully coordinated tiles for a winning combination!
• Engineered Hard Wood – You would be right to think we had lost our minds to suggest hardwood flooring for the basement but now you can have it all.  Engineered Hardwood Flooring is made of five layers of plywood with a top layer of actual laminated veneer of the wood you love.  These engineered hardwoods come in planks and are installed with a tongue and groove.  The planks simply “float” over your existing basement flooring as long as it is in good condition.  In fact, the only prep work you need is to lay out a moisture barrier sheeting over your concrete floor.  Engineered hardwoods are designed to withstand moisture and can be installed below grade without fear of the warping or buckling common to solid hardwood floors.  Armstrong offers a beautiful engineered hardwood with planks in a variety of sizes, styles, and finishes under their Bruce Hardwood Floor line.  ( See www.armstrong.com )
• Epoxy Coating – This is a great option if you are really just looking to spruce up and finish your existing space without making a huge design commitment. It seals and finishes your existing basement floor and gives it a retro and industrial look with a durable coating.  Rust-Oleum makes Epoxy Shield with is mixed in two parts and applied to the floor.  It is available in neutral shades which you can enhance with decorative chips.  This product is also great if your basement has concrete walls and you are looking to finish them with something other than paint.  For more information see www.rustoleum.com.
• Acid Staining Concrete – If you love the look of concrete but are not thrilled with the color grey, acid staining is the technique for you.  This unique and affordable flooring option enhances the condition of your existing concrete floor by coloring and transforming the current look.  The stains can be applied in a decorative way creating patterns and details while drawing out the beauty that hides within your concrete slab.  Gaye Goodman is an amazing concrete acid artist who has used this technique on hundreds of homes and businesses.  Check out www.acidstainconcrete.com for Gaye’s tips and advice on how to bring this unusual effect into your home.

On our radio program The Money Pit, we open each and every hour by inviting calls from “floor boards to shingles.”  If your question is about how to floor the room’s right under those roof shingles or floor boards, there are lots of fabulous flooring choices for both!

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