Living room ceiling/bedroom floors

[Anonymous]

In our 1818 built gradeII listed house in rural Leicestershire, there are two bedrooms above the living room. The beams are exposed in the living room ceiling, altho unfortunately all but a couple are new band-sawn timber (ugly straight things in comparison to the old uneven ones).
Separating the rooms is a layer of chipboard over a layer of fibreboard. We'd like to replace the upstairs floors with pine floorboards in keeping with the nice ones in the other two bedrooms and landing. We'd also quit like to keep the beams exposed, as we've become used to them. My question is this: is it acceptable to use just floorboards and therefore be able to see the undersurface of the boards from below? Is this how it would have been back in the house's youth? We are not too bothered about sound insulation as the bedrooms are really unused (although I realise that they may not be forever, new owners etc.).
Thanks for your help.

 

[Anonymous]

It was common to see the underside of the floorboards in many old cottages, the beams and the underside of the timbers where often limwashed white. Noise is a cosideration but dust also is. Very nice very old world.

 

[Anonymous]

Sounds very nice, but, er, Listed Building COnsent, Building Regs Part B Fire safety? Better check these out.

 

[Anonymous]

Exactly what we've got in our place. It is bloody noisy, however (you can hear the cats walking across the upstairs floors from downstairs, and every word of the quietest conversation from upstairs), dust just drops down into the kitchen whenever you sweep the spare bedroom floor, while light from the kitchen shines up through the cracks.
If you don't mind the noise, you can close up any gaps in the floorboards with softwood fillets or papier mache and just limewash the underside (which is how they would have been originally). Unfortunately these days it's not usual for the whole family to go to bed at the same time, while televisions, radios and the like fill a house with a lot more sound than our ancestors did.
Thus what we intend to do is to put battens along the beams, nail laths to the battens (with some flax insulation between the laths and the upstairs floorboards) and then plaster over the laths.
The beams are seven inches deep, so by the time the plastering's done one should still be able to see about three inches of beam. Then the whole caboodle will be limewashed.

 

[Anonymous]

Asking questions on this forum is the very beginning of my queries. Knowing how the house might have looked will guide me to ask permission for the most fitting option. If this not possible (building regs etc.) the next best, and usually more 'modern', solution will be investigated. Is the current chipboard floor more fire-retardant than pine boards??? Not sure I'd be running out of the house any slower!!

 

[Anonymous]

As others have variously mentioned, you would have a number of problems to deal with (not counting the official stuff - LBC, fire regs, etc). These are:-
Even if you use t&g, shrinkage of your pine floorboards could be sufficient to leave gaps between them - these gaps would allow dust (coins, hairgrips, buttons, etc. etc.) to fall downward and *****s of light to filter upward. Occupants of the bedrooms would also be able to hear a mouse f*rt in the room below (and vice versa). You could also get substantial draughts in either direction.
Why do you want to do this? Would it not be more practical and convenient to use Gervase's method of infilling between the ceiling joists in the room below (although, philistine that I am, I confess I would use plasterboard and fibreglass rather than laths and flax)?
If you do go ahead with your new pine floor (regardless of whether you infill or not), do be sure to leave your pine boards stacked up in the house for at least two weeks (four or more would be better) before you lay them. And when you stack them up during this period, be sure to slip spacers between every board to keep them at least 10mm apart, so that air can circulate around every board. This will help to minimise any shrinkage of the boards as time goes on.

 

[Anonymous]

I am very happy to fill in below, as Gervase and yourself have sensibly suggested! Don't fancy dropping my well earned cash through the floorboards! It's really the acceptability of floorboards straight on the beams that I was querying, as opposed to a layer of something on the beams then battens then floorboards on top. The other two (older) bedrooms in the house have very sloping floors, and the last owner has attached a gypsum plasterboard ceiling below. Because of the slope, he has had to make the ceiling level with the lowest point, which in one downstairs room has lowered the ceiling height considerably. In the other room, he has built a kind of 'stepped' ceiling (very wierd). I would also like to remove these ceilings and infill between the beams, although it's a lot of work for ??minimal gain. As you can tell, I'm relatively new to this game and am hearing different views from builders etc. Thankfully my CO is great!

 

[Anonymous]

Lucky you, having a sympathetic CO, and well done for getting hold of him/her. Your CO will probably have a much better idea of what you can do than the builders, unless they're pukka conservation builders, which ain't common!

As for replacing the floors, if the boarding exists in the other bedrooms, I'd be tempted to match that. It amost certainly won't be the same as modern three-quarter-inch tongue and groove - it's more likely to be inch-thick deal planking, from seven inches to a foot wide. That's a#####of a size to get hold of, so you may have to get your local timber mill to cut it to order. Then just nail that onto the beams, using wedges to but each plank up tightly against the next as it's nailed.

And do heed David's advice about seasoning the stuff in the house before you lay it - a month or so is ideal.

As for the stepped ceiling, go on, take a crowbar to it - you'll be delighted with the extra space and atmosphere, I can guarantee. And don't be put off by the prospect of filling in. As David says, you can used battens and plasterboard and get the job done in a day to a perfectly acceptable standard for plastering - I'm just a pedantic old fart!

 

[Anonymous]

Some CO's of course haven't any qualifications or much idea!

So - what I wonder makes a 'great' CO? (apart from being Gareth Hughes of course...

 

[Anonymous]

Gervase - when it comes to pedantic-old-fartism, I could show you a clean pair of heels!

 

[Anonymous]

Floorboards would almost always be fixed directly to the top of the beams - this is normal. Nowadays you can get all sorts of whizzy things that you could put between the boards and the beams for acoustic and/or thermal insulation, but I've always found it perfectly acceptable to fix the boards directly to the beams, then stuff the cavity between the floorboards and the ceiling plasterboard with fibreglass (or your preferred insulation).
As for the sloping ceilings - I wonder why your predecessor went to so much trouble to hide them? People pay extra for that sort of "character"! I agree with Gervase - I would rip all the falsework out and infill between the beams as already described (with the CO's consent, obviously). Let the ceilings look crooked - it's honest and charming.

 

[Anonymous]

Thank you David and Gervase - it's reassuring to know that what I would 'like' to do is also acceptable to regular forum users. But of course I will ask my nice CO, check with buiding regs, obtain consent, let the boards stand for a long time... and then wield a crowbar with great glee. Finding a supplier of new boards as wide as the ones we have (approx 9 inches) will be a challenge. Cheers!

 

[Anonymous]

>Finding a supplier of new boards as wide as the ones we have (approx 9 inches) will be a challenge.

Go to a sawmill instead of a DIY shed. 9 inch wide and 1 inch thick in oak or a good softwood such as larch should not be a problem. Under a tenner for a 12 foot plank of softwood and under £20 for 12 ft of oak plus a bit for planing it.

 

[Anonymous]

We never noticed that this was the case with our house until we moved in. It is amazing that you can have a conversation with someone in the room above you, but not in the one next to you, as the walls are so thick!!!

We warn all our guests - well mostly <IMG SRC="http://www.periodproperty.co.uk/discussing/smileys/smile.gif" BORDER=0 ALT="">

 

[Anonymous]

This is what we have in our living room and it's our bedroom above. i wasn't in any hurry to cover up the boards until my brother pointed out that plaster board inbetween the beams would give us an extra hour in the event of a fire.

 

[Anonymous]

Our loo is directly above the kitchen sink. When we moved in it was standing directly on top of floorboards, and there is no ceiling in the kitchen apart from the boards.

It wasn't only conversations which could be heard...

A layer of thin insulation stuff from IKEA (the sort on which you lay laminate flooring) covered by a layer of hardboard then a layer of vinyl floor covering has worked wonders. Now any visitors can pee (etc) in peace.

I'd rather have left the boards exposed, but it was a darned sight easier than making a ceiling in the kitchen.

In other places where we still have just boards I agree - noisy (and the muck falls through).

In times of yore I understand the muck problem was why people wore caps indoors!

 

[Anonymous]

So does anyone know about building regs and fire safety (part B or whatever it is)? Does boards nailed to beams then plasterboard (or whatever) infill between the beams below comply?

 

[Anonymous]

They also wore caps indoors because it was so bleedin' cold.

Ring any bells with you?

 

[Anonymous]

But they always took their caps off in church (still not the warmest buildings in the UK)

 

[Anonymous]

Quite right. And that's why the tradition grew up of having graveyards adjacent to churches - less distance to cart the body when they died of cold!

(We're re-writing history here, you know.)

Where have you been, Moo? Haven't seen posts from you for a while.