Floors- Blog 5

 This week in Building Systems we learned about flooring. In the flooring there are three main framing systems which are wood, steel, and concrete.  

In wood floor framing systems there is light framing, which uses multiple small wood joists to carry the load, and heavy timber framing, which relies on columns and beams to carry the load.  

In steel floor framing systems, structural steel is used with concrete metal decking. This system relies on regularly placed columns that support steel beams. Girders span the beams to carry the metal decking. Concrete is poured into the metal decking creating the floor system. Or in the steel framing system, the open web steel joist is used with concrete in metal decking. Open-web steel joists are used to carry the metal decking for concrete-metal in the decking floor system.  

Finally, in concrete flooring systems, the concrete slab is poured in place. Concrete is either poured in place on the site or cast at a plant and then assembled on the site.  

In flooring systems, insulation must be installed. This is used to keep cold air from the ground to move into the building.  

In interior floor materials, there are multiple materials that can be used, which are divided into hard and soft surfaces.  

The hard surfaces can consist of concrete, brick, stone, terrazzo, or ceramic tiles. While concrete can be used as a subfloor or the finished floor, the others are not structural, simply just the finished floor.

Soft surfaces are carpet, wood (strips, planks, or blocks), or resilient flooring (linoleum, rubber, cork, or bamboo). Most of these materials can either be used in commercial or residential settings, however, some are more durable than others.  

Only some of these flooring options are sustainable, such as cork, bamboo, linoleum, hardwood, and potentially stone, concrete, rubber or carpet (such as wool). Things to take into consideration whether something is sustainable is the materials in the product, installation, and packaging, its lifespan, renewability and eco-friendly, and healthy for consumer and producers. However, carpet and rubber can create poor air quality.  

Baseboards- easy to identify with the dark accent

Additionally, there are interior detailing; baseboards, reveal, and clean joint. Baseboards are the trim that connects the floors to the walls, these can be made of different materials to match the flooring, being simple or highly decorated. Reveal is a joint that does not meet the floor, giving a floating effect. Lastly, the clean joint is when the walls simply meet the floors, which can be hard to achieve.