Need attic help

[yellowjacket]

I'm thinking of re-doing my attic. The house was built in the 1900's and is a colonial type in the north east.

I have a couple questions
- First- I am going to insolate my walls and ceiling, will I also have to insolate the floor? Is there a way of making the floor more sound proof so that footsteps and loud noises won't disturb the rest of the house? And doing this without tearing up the floor.

- I"m thinking of turning it into a somewhat of a lounge, having couches and a projector to show movies, along with some other stuff, so that leaves me thinking if it will be able to support the weight of the couches and the people who will be up there. Since my house is so old it seems like a valid concern, but correct me if i'm wrong. How would I find out how much weight it can handle?

- Old house. Old Chimney. In the attic, at the top of chimney the bricks and the grout are really cracking and crumbling. I"m worried that the chimney could just collapse. Without redoing the chimney, is there anything I could do to it to prevent it from getting worse, and just stablize it. I was thinking somewhat of putting cement in the cracks and stuff. But I'd really need other peoples ideas.

Thanks

[chfite]

I will touch on some things and let others fill in the gaps. First of all, check your building code.

Insulating the floor will help with sound transmission to only a small degree. Isolating the area from the current floor will stop the most direct path of transmission of sound. You could offset new joists, raising the floor an inch to achieve this. This may not be an option if the overhead space will not allow for raising the floor. Resilient flooring may help somewhat.

As far the load the joists can carry, the type of lumber and its dimensions will enable you to refer to a table the shows the allowable load by species of lumber and its dimensions. For instance, the joists in my attic are 2x6 oak but not as suited for this application as Southern Yellow Pine would be. Additionally, the structural members in my old house are true dimensions, that is actually 2" by 6" and not the size that dimensioned lumber is nowadays. Today's 2x6 is 1.5 x 5.5.

Repairing mortar is called tuck pointing. I would want to have a chimney sweep or a mason look at the chimney before embarking on any repair project, because a chimney is so large and heavy. I would hate to have to deal with its collapse, if the work were not done properly.

Hope this helps.

[yellowjacket]

thanks for replying-

Where would I find such a table, that would allow me to enter in the type of wood, size, and such to find out how much weight it can handle.

Somebody told me about cork flooring. I really have no knowledge on it, but they said it blocks sounds pretty well. Is that like actuall flooring, or is it somthing that u just kind of put on top of your floors and attach it will nails or glue?

I'm not going to insolate my floor, I've figured that much since I made my initial post.

When it comes to insolating the walls, the 2 ends of the attic that don't have the roof slant, they are already framed, but they aren't evenly framed.. the 2x4's are like 14.5" appart, or 15", or 16", or 16.5"... will this really have bad effect when i'm putting up sheet rock?

[Ed Imeduc]

You can count on a good pad and rug the help kill some noise. Then there is the rubber pad like that interlock
When it comes to insolating the walls, the 2 ends of the attic that don't have the roof slant, they are already framed, but they aren't evenly framed.. the 2x4's are like 14.5" appart, or 15", or 16", or 16.5"... will this really have bad effect when i'm putting up sheet rock?

No just mark where they are on the ceiling and on the floor. Just cut insulation to fit. Dont forget you have to have the foam rafter vents up there before you put any insulation in the roof rafters.

ED ;)