Can You Use Osb For Attic Flooring

Osb tends to be less expensive than plywood so builders and contractors can squeeze a bit more profit out of the project.

Can you use osb for attic flooring. Enjoy a clean look and increase the usable square footage of your attic by multiples of 8 sq. So while exterior glued plywood can be used outdoors it works best. I ve used 7 16 osb for decking in an attic. The other motivation for builders to use osb is money.

If you plan to finish the floor in the attic and turn the room into a living space however you should always use 3 4 inch plywood. 7 16 and 6 00 sounds more like osb than plywood. 1 2 osb would be enough as well but you are paying a premium for those precut sheets you linked. Go with 23 32 osb for an attic.

Maneuvering heavy 4 x 8 sheets of plywood or osb oriented strand board up to an unfinished attic is sometimes like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. It is cheap and strong enough for the job. Its more than stiff enough for 16 oc joist spacing. Osb weight is usually a bit less than its plywood counterpart.

The subfloor consists of sheet materials that are nailed or screwed to the joists to. If your attic joists won t bear the weight necessary to finish out a living space but the engineer cleared them to support floor decking for light storage you can install inch plywood or. Moisture also affects the strength of plywood. In addition to the visible surface flooring material the carpet tile or hardwood there is usually an underlayment and beneath that is a subfloor that serves as the foundation and structural reinforcement for the floor.

Thinner plywood can flex when you walk on it even with 16. Use the tongue and groove feature to lock multiple boards together and improve the organization of your storage space. While osb oriented strand board is generally cheaper than plywood it is heavier and not as stiff as plywood and can result in soft squeaky floors under weight the biggest complaint against osb is that it doesn t handle moisture very well so it is more suited for indoor use. Osb attic decking has a convenient tongue and groove design for easy installation.

Just make sure you insulate below the osb before you install it. When osb goes beyond flooring use and into wall and roof sheathing the profit margin will increase. A typical wood framed residential flooring system is more complicated than you think. In choosing between oriented strandboard and plywood the building and construction technology department at the university of massachusetts amherst explains that 7 16 inch osb and inch plywood weigh in at 46 and 48 pounds respectively so they are quite similar.