Timber Framed Self Build House, St. Albans

This self-build project was looking to improve the quality of the 1st floor construction, eliminate any danger of floor creaking that is common to timber floors and include an efficient underfloor heating solution.

Underfloor heating work at its most efficient when it is installed within a screed, this is the way ground floor system are installed and being able to replicate this pipes in screed arrangement upstairs makes sense for the performance of the complete system.

Also, by including some stiffened mass to the upper floors, the feel of the floor is replicated from the ground floor and also provides some very useful solar thermal buffering to keep summer temperatures under control in a building technique that otherwise has very little mass to to achieve this, especially on the upper levels.

A timber frame structure requires the floor to provide racking to prevent the building from twisting. Meaning the floor needs to be secured to the joists below so the floor can stop twisting. There are 2 ways of installing Lewis Deck in timber frame structures. Firstly is to fix the Lewis Deck down or, alternatively, fix a timber deck on top of the timber joists and the Lewis is then laid loose on top of the timber with the resilient acoustic strips in between , thus, further enhancing the acoustic performance of the floor.