I have a 17×19 family room that has I beams that are 2 foot on center. The floor is bouncy and I’m wanting to take out the bounce without totally tearing up the floor and installing additional I beams. I thought about adding an additional sub floor with the stronger/stiffer wood and offset laying them as compared to the current floor. And screw it in vs. nails. Would this technique work?
My work area underneath is not the best as below the floor it goes into a crawl space which is kind of tight.
Are there any other options?
Replies
Of course anything will help, but if you're down to the subfloor anyway you might want to consider removing parts of that to install piers below.
primarily a bump
I've never seen it, but Boss Hogg who happens to be a truss designer did a thread on bouncy floors before they changed forum software. I think he covered a lot of issues. Try searching for it. Off hand, there are a number of things that could help, but you'll need someone with more expertise than me to rate them for you. They might also need a little more info on your installation, e.g., which dimension do the I-joists span; is there currently any blocking between the I-joists, etc.
In general, adding blocking can help. A strongback could help -- much like blocking.
Here's the vibration thread that someone mentioned:
http://forums.finehomebuilding.com/breaktime/general-discussion/floor-vibration
As he also mentioned, more details would help.
The actural publications that Boss refered are:
JLC. New England Edition. January 1996 "Stiff Subfloor Protects Tile Job" by Robert Randall,P.E.
JLC. August 1997 "Sizing Stiff Floor Girders", by Frank Woeste, P.E., and Dan Dolan, P.E.
JLC. November, !998,"Beyond Code: Preventing Floor Viberation" by Frank Woeste,P.E. and Dan Dolan, P.E.
Some of this get pretty technical and is more about what to do before and not so much about after.
This info has worked well for me. The only thing is that the framers etc. question the need since the span tables allow smaller menbers or longer spans. But then that is why they get bouncy floors.
It soulds like you have I-Joists, not I-beams
The simplest and most efficient solution is priobably to install piers and a beam under the existing. If you have 18" down there it can be done, in my experience. And if you don't have tht much space, youy have other problems.