With the cabin floor joists in, it was time for laying the sub-floor. We could use OSD board which would have been cheaper, but we decided to go with 3/4 inch plywood. OSD is fine for builders, but we knew it was going to take longer for us to build. The sub-floor would be exposed for longer. We figured plywood would hold up better for our timelines.
We picked up the plywood from Home Depot. The load was pretty heavy on out Titan work truck. We took a slow drive out of Edmonton, and our little truck handled it.
We had ordered extra floor joists. This was cut up and used for blocking.
The cuts for the blocking was tricky. On top of that, to screw them in we had to crawl under the floor joists. With two rows of blocking, the joists gave us a very rigid sub-floor.
Before we could put the sub-floor down we needed to figure out what we were going to do about vapor barrier.
Installing the Vapor Barrier
We figured the easiest way was to just cover the entire floor with vapor barrier, then put the sub-floor over the top of it. This turned out to be a bad idea. We did not know it at this time.
When it rained, the vapor barrier trapped the water and was seeping through the sub-floor. Now we needed to crawl underneath the sub-floor frame, and cut the vapor barrier. This would then allow the trapped water to escape.
We would have to figure something else out for the vapor barrier, but that’s for another day.
We did remember to mark where the floor joists were before we covered them all. This makes it a lot easier to screw the sub-floor down. We also staggered the sheets of plywood when laying the sub-floor. This would help with the rigidity of the floors.
I screwed the corners down. Sharon went along behind me screwing the sub-floor down. With screws every six inches along each joist, it took a long time to finish screwing down the sub-floor.
With the sub-floor in we now had a flat surface to work on. This will make it much easier to build things like roof trusses, but that’s another story.
When the sub-floor was all done, we had Kimi inspect it. He was a little weary at first, but I think he approves!!