Over garage storage - how much weight?

[mritchie77]

Hello,

Moved into a new house this summer and just now am getting around to organizing the storage space above my garage. So far, I've placed a couple of 3/4" plywood sheets up there for light stuff (gun cases, extra trim, seed spreader, etc). Only now am I wondering what the actual load capacity might be up here.

I don't plan on throwing engines or something up here, but I'd love to be able to cover the rest of the floor in plywood and store more stuff like a miter saw, wife's garden tools not used much, and extra totes to get **** out of the house.

I'm not much on building specs, but the attic floor appears to be 2 sandwich LVLs spanning the center a double wide garage with 2x8's coming off of that to the outside walls.

 

[xjfish]

I don't plan on throwing engines or something up here, but I'd love to be able to cover the rest of the floor in plywood and store more stuff like a miter saw, wife's garden tools not used much, and extra totes to get **** out of the house.

Should not be a problem! Your ceiling joists look sufficient for about anything you could carry up a ladder...

 

[Don1357]

You can use a floor joist calculator to figure out how much 2x8 can be spanned for a given floor dead weight. Chances are it will hold a whole lot more than you'll feel comfortable hauling up there.

 

[nadogail]

IMHO, The 3/4 plywood if anchored to the supporting structure will make a diaphragm that should evenly distribute any load you are going to pack up there.

Any advice you take from me is guaranteed to be worth exactly what you have paid me for it.

 

[johninct]

3/4" ??? Are you going to put engine blocks up there?

 

[mritchie77]

3/4" ??? Are you going to put engine blocks up there?

I like sturdy. The original sheets up there were from a separate project, but now that they are up (and I'm OCD enough) the difference in height from 1/2" ply would drive me nuts.

You can use a floor joist calculator to figure out how much 2x8 can be spanned for a given floor dead weight. Chances are it will hold a whole lot more than you'll feel comfortable hauling up there.

I looked one up, but I'm best guessing. No clue what grade lumber I have but it appears that for a dead load of 10psf the maximum span is 9.5ft which is around where I'm at now.

Should not be a problem! Your ceiling joists look sufficient for about anything you could carry up a ladder...

Probably a good way of looking at it. My miter saw is probably 40ish pounds and that's about the heaviest thing I'd be putting up there.

 

[Jeepster04]

Is it just me or are those ceiling joists really far apart?

 

[mritchie77]

Is it just me or are those ceiling joists really far apart?

24" spacing between joists across the whole house.

 

[Marctrees]

3/4 totally totally overkill.

1/2 w face grain running ACROSS joists will hold a 250 man w/o sagging.

Marc

 

[Don1357]

I like sturdy. The original sheets up there were from a separate project, but now that they are up (and I'm OCD enough) the difference in height from 1/2" ply would drive me nuts.




I looked one up, but I'm best guessing. No clue what grade lumber I have but it appears that for a dead load of 10psf the maximum span is 9.5ft which is around where I'm at now.

This is mostly to soothe your fears. At 10 pounds of dead load (very conservative) a 10' x 10' area should be able to carry 1,000 pounds.

 

[dcg9381]

You can use a floor joist calculator to figure out how much 2x8 can be spanned for a given floor dead weight. Chances are it will hold a whole lot more than you'll feel comfortable hauling up there.

This. But with 2x8s, and given what you want to put up there, I wouldn't worry about it for a second. When you start loading it up, perhaps time to look up what the nearest equivalent span is loaded for.