Timber Floor Joist Sizes

When building a house or even a deck it is important to confirm you have the correct joist sizes spans and spacing before you get started.

Timber floor joist sizes.

Joist span and spacing is set by your local building code. Though joists may be any size that you desire using typical floor joist and beam specifications ensures that you can find hardware to fit the joists and that the floor provides adequate support for furniture and other items in a room. See the image below for an example of joists spaced 16 on center 16 o c. This sample table gives minimum floor joist sizes for joists spaced at 16 inches and 24 inches on center o c for 2 grade lumber with 10 pounds per square foot of dead load and 40 pounds of live load which is typical of normal residential construction.

This span table is to the format and methodology given in bs 5268 7 1. While most residential construction uses 2x8 joists with 16 inch spacing there are many other factors you need to consider when determining the proper joist span length. Surveyors and structural engineers use data from tables below to help calculate the size of timbers necessary to give adequate support to timber floors. These spans were calculated using our floor joist calculation engine.

Find the column for your dead load and spacing and the row for your timber size to find the permissible clear span in metres. Click on a span to generate a full calculation you can adjust the exact span. The floor joist spacing is the distance between the centers of any two installed joists.