An item for the discussion of flooring...

41 responses total.

What are sensible choices of materials for flooring an attic?  I suppose
I'm looking for something strong yet light.  I would like it to be
something that's either grown renewably or, in the case of a composite
material, something with a recycled component.  I anticipate having the
planks or boards raised a little from the rafters, so that there's room
underneath for more insulation.  Thoughts or suggestions are invited.

We did ours with three layers of scrap 1/2" drywall, a renewable resource, 
glued together with latex paint that the neighbors did not want (I think 
we mixed it with sand to make it thicker).  We topped it with something - 
drywall compound and then more sand paint?  I can ask Jim. Three layers 
make it strong enough to walk on.  YOu can use whatever old nails or 
screws you have around that are long enough.

We started by nailing short scrap 2x4"s across the 24"-spaced rafters, with
about 4" between them, so the drywall would not need to span so far.  If you
want to add insulation space, you could start with one layer  of 2x4's on
edge at 24" spacing, following by the flat 2x4's at 4" spacing, then the
drywall.  Two layers might be enough but we had a whole bunch to use up and
it seemed a bit flexible with only 2.  

We have 15" insulation.  You need a vapor barrier UNDER it (on the warm 
side) - plastic sheets taped together - to keep moisture from condensing 
in it.

Check building sites for scrap lumber, and call a drywaller to ask where you
can pick up the drywall scraps.  It will be a lot of cutting and piecing. 
Anything leftover can go in the compost pile or the fireplace.

We may have used drywall compound in the top layer.  If you want I can ask
Jim the details.  Maybe sand 

Don't try burning drywall scraps in the fireplace.

Lumber takes quite a while to compost.

The general consensus seems to be plywood, though oriented stranded
board has also been suggested as a possibility.  That's inexpensive, but
I'm not sure how well it would hold up in the event of moisture ingress.
 Sheets seem to be 8'x10', but I would have them cut down the middle,
4'x10' boards should be more managable for me.  I would prefer to find a
light, sustainably-grown wood that's available in half-inch x 2' boards,
but that would probably cost a lot more than ply.

Bamboo flooring has become fashionable.

You don't need much area of that 2x1/2, do you? I'd suggest plywood, and it
comes in 4x8 foot sheets.

If you don't have a vapor barrier already on the warm side of the insulation
(the ceiling below) plywood, which has enough glue to be a vapor barrier,
could trap condensation and rot.  (It happened to us and we had to replace
the flooring, but our plywood also had MDO plastic on top of it).

Okay. I'm off to Lowes in the morning to buy the first board
or two.  Depending on the cost, I'll also buy some more
fibreglass insulation to put under the boards.

I'm curious how this turned out.  My attic doesn't have much clearance but
it'd be great to have the additional space if just for storing suitcases.
I had an electrician install a light in the attic when we had the
bathroom exhaust fan put in.  Now, I want to have the kitchen exhaust
ducting repaired (when we bought the house, they'd installed a stove
vent which doesn't exhaust but rather recycles the air out the front of
the hood back into the kitchen, feh..)
I have a hood ready to install which has a duct on top but need the ductwork
in the attic to go out the roof (all parts are there but in a pile)

If you don't have a gas stove, you save a lot of heat by recycling instead
of throwing out your warm air from above the stove.  Just change the filter
once in a while if you fry things.  If you have a gas stove, you are breathing
methane and carbon monoxide.  You could pay for an electric stove outlet.

There is neglible CO or CH4 from a properly functioning gas stove. Of course,
it must be "properly functioning" and that caveat is why it is not recommended
heating a space with a gas stove. 

When I was a kid my brother and I had a lab and shop in a room in an unheated
garage. In winter we used a kerosene space heater that vented into the room
for hours-on-end. We never had symptoms of carbon monixide poisoning. These
were very common in the country for space heating of single rooms. 

It takes a while for the symptoms to be noticeable.  Studies have shown that
children living with gas stoves have more respiratory problems.

On the subject of CO, I have heard, but have been unable to confirm, that
alcohol fuelled motors are considered carbon-monoxide safe for indoor use,
(the particular application being discussed being motorized wheelchairs).
Is this so? And would E85 also be acceptable?

The web says complete combustion of alcohol gives carbon dioxide and water.
Complete combustion of methane probably does the same, but how do you assure
complete combustion?

Household gas also contains a trace of methyl mercaptan, which burns to
produce some sulfur dioxide, to which some people are very sensitive (sulfite
allergy), and it is an irritant for all people. 

Another good reason not to go with the fad for gas stoves.  I wonder if the
sulfur is the cause of increased asthma in people with gas stoves.

There is the problem that using an electric stove also produces sulfur dioxide
in the combustion of the coal used to generate electricity - in fact much more
than using natural gas because coal has more sulfur than that in or added to
natural gas. 

The sulfur is not generated inside your house, and it can be removed at the
smokestaff with scrubbing devices (I think they convert it to carbonates).

(You can't convert sulfates to carbonates....)  A great deal of SOx in 
everyone's air is a bigger problem than a tiny amount in your home air.

A great deal of pollutant in a much greater amount of air is far less
concentrated than what a gas stove puts into a house.  We got monoxide
readings in a friend's house which were too high on the third floor when the
oven was running on the first floor.

The oven is not operating correctly. Have it inspected and adjusted. The
burners may be dirty or the air inlets gunked up. 

Gas stoves are not a fad.  They have been around for a long time.  I am
looking forward to the day that we get to the kitchen renovations and I
can get my gas stove.  They cook better than electric stoves.  I have
never had an electric stove that can reach the temperature needed for my
wok to cook properly.

Have you tried an electric wok?  The element is built in.  Gas stoves are a
current fad.  Before that it was smoothtop electric stoves, and before that
euro-style electric stoves.  Most people had switched to electric.  I wonder
if the gas stove fad started about the same time as the nostalgia fad (for
fake dormers on houses) in the mid 80s.  Most gas burners do not get as hot
as electric burners, though they are more rapidly adjustable.  Radiant burners
(cook with lights) are also rapidly adjustable.  Not sure about convection
burners, which require special pots and never got popular. Also expensive.

A gas stove burner gets *much* hotter than an electric burner: it is a 
flame. Gas stoves go back to the invention of water-gas generation in the 
19th century. TYhey've been used by many people ever since. Then the gas 
was mostly hydrogen and carbon monoxide (the days when you could "put your 
head in the oven" to commit suicide).

I remember my grandmother who lived in the country (no gas or electric) 
and had a wood-burning stove. In fact, there was one in the kitchen of a 
house I once owned in Ann Arbor in the 1970's when I moved in. These 
presented a possible serious problem with CO, but good design made them 
safe from that.

Could you cite proof of gas burners being hotter than electric ones?
I have read the opposite.

Hold a steel wire in the flame near the tip. It will glow hotter (orange 
to yellow hot) than a electric stovetop burner (which only get "red" hot). 
Here are some such color temperatures

                         C

Black Red               537
Blood Red               649
Low Cherry Red          746
Medium Cherry Red       774
Full Cherry Red         815
Bright Red              843
Salmon                  899
Orange                  940
Lemon                   996

RE 24:  An electric wok is a travesty.  My wok can go anywhere I go and
cook.  It goes camping with me.  I can use it on a charcoal grill or an
open wood fire when there is a power outage, things that cannot be done
with an electric wok.

And professional cooks use gas stoves.  You will almost never see an
electric stove in a professional kitchen.  You don't get good control
with an electric stove.  With a gas stove you turn off the burner and
the food stops cooking, with an electric stove the burner stays hot and
can overcook the food unless you remove the pot from the burner.  I
don't have a place to put a hot pot to be able to remove it from the
burner when cooking a full meal.  I often have all of the burners going
at the same time.  I see it much as I see the off button on my car's
heater.  When it says "off" and I push it (turn it off) I damn well want
it to be off, not just turned down like it is on most of the cars in the
last 15-20 years.  When I turn off the heat, I want no more heat.  I
have almost infinite control over the amount of flame on a gas stove but
am limited to just a few preset heat levels on an electric stove.  Since
I do more creative cooking than just putting on a pot of grain and
veggie, I need a lot of control over the amount of heat I get, and it
needs to be variable.

Would electric induction cooking work for you, or halogen?
Or a heatproof countertop?

What's wrong with gas?

Pollution.  I keep running across mention of studies proving it.

But it creates more pollution to make electrcity, even from gas, because of
inefficiencies in energy transformations.

Please cite some of those studies. 

I prefer gas.  Another big factor is that I have never had a gas stove
die on me.  We are looking at replacing our second stove since moving
into this house in August 2001.  The one we bought when we moved in was
a simple electric stove.  With the kind of use we put a stove through it
died and had to be replaced in 2004.  The current stove is an electric
glass top.  The top has cracked rather badly.  We will be looking at the
possibility of just replacing the top, but I have the feeling that it
may cost more to do that than it will to buy a new stove.  I just wish
that I could replace it with a gas one, but I don't see that as a
possibility just yet.  If I have to tear the floor up to put in a gas
feed for a stove, I would rather wait until I have both the time and the
money to do the needed full floor replacement.  We were hoping that this
stove would last until we did the full kitchen renovation, and to be
able to move it to the basement for things like canning and a backup for
family holiday cooking.

I have never had a problem with pollution from a gas stove.  If the
kitchen is properly ventilated, there isn't a problem.

Don't keep trying to make the rest of us fit into your concepts of what
is right and wrong.  We don't all cook, or even live, the way you do and
have no desire to do so.  Your continuous preaching at us about it
doesn't do anything to change our minds.  It strikes me the same way
that the religious nuts that come to my door trying to convince me to
change to their "one true religion" is the only way to salvation, I
don't want or feel the need for salvation.  Electricity may be slightly
cleaner in the house, but as Rane says, it causes much more pollution to
the rest of the world to create it.  I would rather fight the slight
possible raise in pollution in my home than the huge amount of pollution
that affects the whole community/world. 

You are quite welcome to breathe your own pollution.  My electricity is wind
generated by DTE.  I pay 25% extra for it.  And breathe clean air at home
without needing to ventilate the kitchen (which throws out heat, necessitating
creating more pollution to replace it).

You do not, in fact get any wind generated power from DTE.
http://www.ecocenter.org/press/releases/20081007.php

DTE told me this summer that they have wind generators in northern Michigan.
What date is your press release?  They used to purchase from out of state.
More generators are under construction.  At a recent seminar (November) DTE
went into detail about its wind generators.  

Glass-topped electric stoves with coils under the surface are much slower to
heat up because the glass insulates (keeps the heat away from the pots). 
Halogen under glass is faster.  So is electric induction heat (it generates
heat in the iron of the pot, can't use aluminum or glass pots with it).  Jim
has a 'Euro style' stove where the coil is attached to a heavy iron plate
sealed to the surface of the stove, which takes several minutes to heat up
and cool down.  I cook at his house with a coil-type hotplate instead, or an
electric frying pan, rather than waste heat and burn things on his stove. 
Or have to plan several minutes ahead of when I want things to stop cooking.
He had a glass-top model before which was even worse.

October 8 2008.

I looked at your article and will ask DTE what is going on.  Maybe they did
lie to us.  The article says the extra money we are paying is going mainly
towards marketing, not energy generation.

So, back to floors.

Re #10: I bought OSB because it was inexpensive.  Lowe's cut
  the board lengthways and I took it home myself in the
  car (every time I do something like this I silently thank
  keesan for suggesting a station wagon). I was able to man-
  handle them into the attic myself.  For the time being I
  have given up hope of improving the attic insulation and
  the boards are sitting directly on the joists, which have
  a little loose-fill fibreglass between them.  I have a few
  plastic totes up there now and should probably buy another
  board to double my attic storage area.

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