Osb Or Plywood For Attic Storage

If your attic joists won t bear the weight necessary to finish out a living space but the engineer cleared them to support floor decking for light storage you can install inch plywood or.

Osb or plywood for attic storage.

Oriented strand board osb board that soaked in my bathtub overnight swelled almost 1 4 in. The previous homeowner may have simply covered the joists with plywood to use the space for storage. Don t store osb in a full bathtub. Cut the plywood into manageable strips about 10 inches wide to make the job easier.

Plywood comes in large sheets. While this is not the optimal setup it is acceptable to have ceiling joists covered with plywood or osb to use for light attic storage of dead loads. It might seem impossible to haul it up to the attic. A viable alternative to plywood this osb board is engineered to prevent any cupping warping or splitting.

7 16 and 6 00 sounds more like osb than plywood. Kept high and dry during storage and after installation osb has the same strength and durability as plywood but costs less. Osb attic decking has a convenient tongue and groove design for easy installation. The edges of the 1 2 in.

I ve used 7 16 osb for decking in an attic. The decision regarding the thickness of plywood to use for the subfloor in the attic has a lot to do with how you intend to use the attic and it also depends on the spacing of the ceiling joists. It is too thin for a floor in a room but for a lightly used attic it is plenty. Maneuvering heavy 4 x 8 sheets of plywood or osb oriented strand board up to an unfinished attic is sometimes like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole.

To make the job easier use a circular saw to cut the plywood sheet first into 2 2 8 strips which will be much easier to handle. It is cheap and strong enough for the job. In attics built purely for storage purposes you may find 2x6 ceiling joists or in some cases. Use the tongue and groove feature to lock multiple boards together and improve the organization of your storage space.