Howdy, I'm hoping to start boarding my loft soon, and will be probably insulating at my rafters and removing the existing wool insulation at ceiling level.
My 1960s loft has hangar beams, only about 1.5 metres apart, on top of only 2x4 ceiling joists. So I'm confused how best to structure the boarding in general. I'm thinking I should either sister the current beams with higher beams and fix them so they're exactly aligned with the hangar beam height, or I could use joist hangars and hang joist from the hangar beams? That feels like it's probably a terrible idea, as it'd just put ALL the weight on the hangars, thereby loading the beams below in a single line rather than spreading it out?
Alternatively I could just make my own "feet"? just attaching lengths of 2x4 every 40cm along the beams? That sounds a bit vague, but certainly would use far less timber, so less weight and cost.
My 1960s loft has hangar beams, only about 1.5 metres apart, on top of only 2x4 ceiling joists. So I'm confused how best to structure the boarding in general. I'm thinking I should either sister the current beams with higher beams and fix them so they're exactly aligned with the hangar beam height, or I could use joist hangars and hang joist from the hangar beams? That feels like it's probably a terrible idea, as it'd just put ALL the weight on the hangars, thereby loading the beams below in a single line rather than spreading it out?
Alternatively I could just make my own "feet"? just attaching lengths of 2x4 every 40cm along the beams? That sounds a bit vague, but certainly would use far less timber, so less weight and cost.