Hi,
I’m digging up some of the ground floor in my house, it was just concrete on top of soil with tiles on top. I’ve done this to put in a new suspended timber floor to match the rest of the house, and then insulate under all the floors (PIR boards between joists).
In any case I was a bit unsure as to whether the new floor / joists need to be actually be connected to the walls. In the rest of my house, the joists are just sitting on sort of shoulder walls, they‘re not embedded into the walls (like on the first floor).
Having looked on the internet the standard practice seems to either build joists into the walls or use joist hangers by either building them into the walls or by bolting a ledger board to the walls and the have the joist hangers attached to the ledger board. Obviously my house is already built so I can’t be building into the walls, so I’m left with the ledger board and joist hanger option.
My question was whether it is actually necessary to secure the floor / joists to the wall? Is it also acceptable to build a wall (or pillars with a wall plate) close to the walls and have the joists rest on those so the floor won’t be in contact with the walls, similar to how the timber floor is in the rest of the house? The reasons I ask is that it’s an old house and the brickwork on the inner side of the external walls is damp and I’m worried that trying to drill into the bricks and bolt a ledger board to it would be a problem.
I’m digging up some of the ground floor in my house, it was just concrete on top of soil with tiles on top. I’ve done this to put in a new suspended timber floor to match the rest of the house, and then insulate under all the floors (PIR boards between joists).
In any case I was a bit unsure as to whether the new floor / joists need to be actually be connected to the walls. In the rest of my house, the joists are just sitting on sort of shoulder walls, they‘re not embedded into the walls (like on the first floor).
Having looked on the internet the standard practice seems to either build joists into the walls or use joist hangers by either building them into the walls or by bolting a ledger board to the walls and the have the joist hangers attached to the ledger board. Obviously my house is already built so I can’t be building into the walls, so I’m left with the ledger board and joist hanger option.
My question was whether it is actually necessary to secure the floor / joists to the wall? Is it also acceptable to build a wall (or pillars with a wall plate) close to the walls and have the joists rest on those so the floor won’t be in contact with the walls, similar to how the timber floor is in the rest of the house? The reasons I ask is that it’s an old house and the brickwork on the inner side of the external walls is damp and I’m worried that trying to drill into the bricks and bolt a ledger board to it would be a problem.