Looking for advice, I need to raise floor

[Joshua2639]

Hello everyone,

This is my first post, although I have been reading info here for a while.

I have a job where I will be doing both hardwood floors and tile floors. I came across a surprise when I demo’d the customers sunroom floor. The carpeting seemed to be level from room to room but I pulled up a section of subfloor to find that the construction was actually 2x10 joist (10’ span), green with green ¾ ply, not toung and grooved with cheap carpet, no pad, glued to the subfloor. On top of that was 2x4 sleepers and finally ¾ ply, no tongue.

My plan is to remove everything all the way down to the joists. I will need to make up 3 ¼” to bring my subfloor height to be even with the subfloor for the surrounding rooms. To do this I will sister 2x12s (white) to the 2x10 (green) and leave them 2 ½ “ high, add vapor barrier, and add ¾ t&g ply. And end up the same height. Any reason not to sister joists to raise floor when dealing with tile?

My second question:

I will be putting two separate tile areas in the middle of my maple hardwood floor and doing tile on the stairs with a maple bullnose and riser. Does anyone have any words of wisdom or words of caution when mixing the two different materials?

Thanks for your help,

By the way, after reading everyones post on here I just ordered a Felker FTS-150. I am looking forward to setting it up. I had ordered a MK but cancelled it after reading how promptly Andy L took care of someone who wrote in about a screw that wasn’t threaded all the way.

Thanks again,

Joshua

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[Mountain Tile]

sounds like a plan, i would be sure to use kiln dried lumber for sistering. i would also glue the sistering material with liquid nails and screw them together with wood screws, not drywall screws. i dont see a problem with the differant materials. :goodluck:

[cx]

Welcome, Joshua. :)

I would save a whole gaggle of dinero by sistering with 2x6s, well attached to the existing joists with screws and construction adhesive. I'm presuming that your joist spacing is 16" oc and with a 10-foot span you don't really need any additional support. I favor PL's Polyurethane for my standard construction adhesive these days. I'd use PL-400 to attach the subflooring to the joists.

I would toss that saved money in the materials pile and use it to buy half-inch plywood for my second layer of subflooring, installed according to these guidelines. (http://www.tile-assn.com/tileletter/pdfs/Underlayment-Nielsen-Woeste-0604.pdf) No sense having all that vertical room to use and still install the bare minimum of subflooring, which is more often the cause of tile failure than the joist system.

Lot of words of wisdom about mixing those floors, but don't have any idea how much you know about tile work. When you post here in the Hangout, as opposed to the Advice Forum, it's usually accepted that a fella knows all the basics and just looks for help with the unusual situation. If that's not correct in your case, so state. The other tile pros hereabouts (I are not one) are always very free with their knowledge, but they need to know where you're coming from, as it were.

Stairs can be very, very tricky things to tile successfully. You'll need to give a lot of detail about how yours are constructed and what your plan is.

My opinion; worth price charged.