As just posted elsewhere, if you are on a 2nd or higher level in a house (or office, like us), don't trust a wood floor at all.
Watch out for wood floors
- Thread starter SantaMonica
- Start date
solid hardwood won't let you down. just treat it right. watch out for bad - dry rot perhaps? you should watch out for poorly cured cement and bad quality steel as well
Probably orientated strand board, aka OSB. Used almost exclusively in wooden stick built houses.
It swells and litaraly will crumble. Floor joists are often "engineered lumber" OSB.
Years ago I helped build a 2500 sqft house. With just two carpenters, working all summer. The sub floors 3/4" OSB. Got rained on about 4 times before we got the roof up.
Many of the sheets, swelled pulling the nail head through the wood. The once 3/4" flat floor became 1.25" thick and severely warped.
I have seen OSB sub floors in a kitchen with a minor drip behind a wall. Require a complete restoration.
It swells and litaraly will crumble. Floor joists are often "engineered lumber" OSB.
Years ago I helped build a 2500 sqft house. With just two carpenters, working all summer. The sub floors 3/4" OSB. Got rained on about 4 times before we got the roof up.
Many of the sheets, swelled pulling the nail head through the wood. The once 3/4" flat floor became 1.25" thick and severely warped.
I have seen OSB sub floors in a kitchen with a minor drip behind a wall. Require a complete restoration.
No links. 12" joists with 3/4 sheet that slowly warped, cracking an acrylic tank, and causing 12" tiles to let go and flop around.
That is how it should be done. I have seen a lot of houses built during. The 2003 Iraq war when materials were hard to find. With 100% exterior grade OSB, roof, floors and walls.
The house I was building, was also in a no building code state
I am pretty sure that the OSB engineered floor joists are, normal practice.
At least their were apartments built with concrete for fish keepers to rent.
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I am just a jack of the trades. I always thought the subfloor was attached to the floor joists. Then the floor was next up.
This is how they use to build them. 2" × 6" rough cut, actual dimensions. With 1" hard wood floors attached. Built in 1886. 1" x 6" exterior sheeting with plaster lathe on the inside. Tornado proof up to an F-3. Hurricane proof up to an F-4.