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I am needing to raise my sunken living room 7" to be flush with existing floor. All the outlets and windows are fine as is and the cieling is vaulted so that isnt an issue. Right now there is a crawlspace below and the existing floor is just on joists. Becuase of this I dont think concrete is the answer. I was thinking of running new joists on top of the existing and just then adding insulation between and 3/4 TG subfloor. My questions are:

  • Since the new joists need to be 6.25" with 3/4" sub to get my 7" to level should I just use hangers and 2X6's or use a 2X6 fured out with 1X2's?
  • If fured, put them on the top or bottom?
  • If fured, Should I glue and nail the joists?
  • If fured, Should the go parallel or perpendicular to existing joists (image shows current joist direction)?

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I would get 2x8 boards and rip them to 6.25. It's the simplest and cheapest solution, and probably also the strongest.

If you go parallel, then you have to make sure that the new joists are directly on top of the old joists - otherwise, they're only being supported by the subfloor. But if you put them perpendicular, you can put them anywhere you want, and I'm guessing that the whole setup will be stronger overall, since the load on each upper joist will be distributed among multiple lower joists. So perpendicular is the way I would go.

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  • Thanks. My initial thought was running them perpendicular but was not sure. Good call on ripping the 2X8's. I saw some people just adding rim joist and using hangers but resting on the existing joists seems better to me structurally.
    – Packy
    Commented May 14, 2018 at 18:06

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