I’ve got a mid terrace, typical two up two down. Rooms are about 5m square with a central wall. I’d like to put chipboard across the loft space, just to store stuff and not waste the space.

As 50m square of chipboard will be quite heavy, how can I work out if the joists will support it?

I’m guessing but chipboard weight approx..a figure of 0.7t kg/m2 (where t = thickness in millimeters) for C5 grade. This makes a standard sheet come out at 25kg

0.7t kg/m2 is say 10mm chipboard x .7kg = 7kg/m2 which is no weight at all. What are your joists a 6 x 2 @ 16 inch centers?

I think they’re more 4×2. It’s an old house

they’ll be more like 3×1.5 in reality. in those really old terraced houses I generally advise going no further than 2m from the middle supporting wall. there’s generally not much strength in them and 5m is quite a span

Load sharing. Nail the buggers down and spread the love. Don’t be daft.and pile spare engines or half a library up there tho.

If I nailed into the rafters in my attic, I’d expect half the ceilings to come down. Just walking on them cracks the plaster. 1890s house.

You see, after your good show yesterday tymbian you’ve slipped up today! Nobody has ceiling joists of the 6×2 variety!

My bad..don’t know why I said that really. Obviously how they should of been built..

What’s my punishment?

You see, after your good show yesterday tymbian you’ve slipped up today! Nobody has ceiling joists of the 6×2 variety!

I do….

😀 😀 😀

You just saved me from a typical STW style pasting methinks. Street cred restored?

so can I get my scalextric set up in my loft then or what?

How big are your rafters? 😳

It’s actually Joints that hold the floor up and Rafters which hold the roof up, although I always confuse the two…..

@ fooflaps…or joists even….joints are what you need to smoke to get rafters and joists confused.