Should You Drill Floor Joists

Measure up 2 inches from the bottom edge of the joist and mark it again.

Should you drill floor joists.

Guide to making safe cuts holes and notches in floor joists and ceiling joists. How to drill through floor joists. The guidelines for these are shown in fig. For this discussion we will focus on the traditional dimensional floor joists.

The rules for positioning notches in floor joists image courtesy of niceic to understand the forces at work in a joist particularly the tension and compression forces please see our project that explains how the forces that affect buildings work. No greater diameter than 0 25 times the depth of. B the guidelines are simple. Mark the joist at that spot with a pencil.

Cutting notches and drilling holes in joists. You can safely drill joists for electrical and plumbing runs without weakening the joists if you follow the rules. If you have manufactured floor joists. For those working with the less common open web or floor truss joists fig.

You can t notch or drill them anywhere. When you walk around in your home you probably don t think much about what you re standing on and you might just be surprised by how many layers sit below you every day. First let s take a look at the code 2012 international residential code to see what is required when drilling floor joists. How to position holes correctly so they don t weaken the joist.

Rules for holes in joists. If you re remodeling or building with i joists your lumber supplier can provide you with a set of hole drilling standards to follow. Irc r502 8 and irc r802 7.