attic joists

[matthew miller]

I have a house built around 1950. The attic is large and appears to have
been built as a room, there are two windows on the gable ends and floor
board same as the upstairs floor. I have had to take up the floor to do some
recent plumbing and have discovered that the floor joists are 4" by 2"
resting on the wall plate with 2" by 2" at 90degrees on top of the 4" by
2"s. I know that this was constructed like this because of the original
wiring runs over the joists.

The floor seems to be very sturdy and strong and straight, so was it common
to build attic rooms in this way before building regulations came in?

[Hugo Nebula]

On Sat, 24 Apr 2004 12:36:10 +0100, a particular chimpanzee named
"matthew miller" <mat...@zen.co.uk> randomly hit the keyboard and
produced:

I don't think it was built as a room, or at least the 'floor' wasn't.
It sounds like the joists are just enough to support the ceiling with
the 50mm x 50mm members as strutting to stop any lateral movement.
AFAIR 100mm deep floor joists will span about 1.8m. The windows may
have been for decorative effect only. Are you certain that the
boarding and the windows weren't part of a later illegal loft
conversion?
--
Hugo Nebula
"The fact that no-one on the internet wants a piece of this
shows you just how far you've strayed from the pack".