Week 56-58 - Replacing Gallery Floor

Now our cantilevered scaffolding platform over the river is no longer attached to it, it is time to rip up and replace the whole middle floor of the building. I must admit I had hoped this may be something that wouldn’t actually need doing and we could stick with what was there, but it’s become increasing obvious that it is not really up to the job and we wont get another opportunity to do it. 

Also, what if, in a few years time I decide to commission a replica, life-sized Greek marble statue of myself to position right in the middle of the gallery? The old floor is just not strong enough to take that kind weight and I am not prepared to have that ego maniac option taken away from me! You know?!?

So anyway, yes, the floor is being replaced…  

As we would then have no way of actually moving the joist around to where we wanted them easily or anywhere to put all the stuff that is already stored on this level of the building, I decided to take the floor up in a few staged areas.

Above: Middle section of the main gallery floor

Below: Front road facing section of galley floor

As you can see below the new floor joists are a fair chunk bigger than the old. We have also added a lot of lapped noggins in the opposite direction to the joists. Once the floor boards are on top and the plasterboard on the underside it will create a ‘torsion box’ effect over the floor. This basically means the timbers are all interlinked so load is distributed over the whole floor not just directly beneath a heavy item. I.e. the weight of my statue will be spread evenly over the space! 

 As shown in the last post about tanking, we built two new internal blockwork walls down each side of the workshop below. As we have raised the height of the floor by about 150mm to maintain the same head height below after the new slab pour, and used bigger timbers, the old joist pockets in the walls are no longer at the right height for our floor. So our new internal walls below are now designed to carry the floor at each edge.

Equally all the old pockets in the main floor beams the joist sit on top of, are no longer any good to me. Not to mention these very large, old timbers have only vague memories of what it was to be straight, level or true in their youth. So they have been sandwiched both sides and bolted though with new timber to the new level floor height.

Sophie merrily bolting the joist together where they meet on top of each beam



Joists and noggins going in at each of the side bays of the floor

Finished floor

The 4 small drop outs in the floor at various positions are for plug and networking points to be fitted. When the final floor covering is fitted these will become seamless apart from a small 'finger-pull hole and cable exit