Structural floor system

Abstract

A structural floor system is provided comprising: a plurality of I-joists; a plurality of composite wood panels attached to the plurality of I-joists, each panel having parallel first and second longitudinal edges, each panel containing a binder resin; and an adhesive composition containing the binder resin, the adhesive composition applied between on the first and second longitudinal edges.

Description

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0001] A structural, weight-bearing floor system is constructed by lying a floor deck across a number of underlying, supporting I-joists. The deck may be made of a variety of different materials, such as wood as well as concrete although for the present invention, which is directed primarily at residential home construction, the flooring deck will most typically be constructed of wood, such as wood panels set to lie across a series of underlying wood joists. [0002] One of the most important design parameters of a structural floors system is the distance that separates adjacent joists. The greater the distance, the fewer the joists that support the deck of the structural floor system. Increasing the span distance provides a number of advantages such as decreasing the cost and the amount of time that is necessary to install a floor, as well as give builders and architects more choice in the way homes are designed, arranged and built. Closely related to the ...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

The present invention is a structural floor system that includes I-joists and composite wood panels attached to the joists using an adhesive composition containing a binder resin. The panels can have parallel edges or a groove and complementary tongue design. The use of the binder resin and adhesive composition improves the strength and stability of the floor system.

Problems solved by technology

It is particularly desired to avoid producing these squeaks in a floor, because fixing them is often very difficult, time consuming and invariably expensive.

While this structural floor system has the advantage of increasing span distances and reducing the thickness of the cast concrete floor, it is not really suitable for widespread use in home construction.

The result is a structure that, according to the '681 patent, increases “vertical stiffness and reduces the amount of deflection, vibration, and noise experienced during loading.” While those are desirable benefits, the expense and difficulty of installing this pretensioning system makes it impractical for widespread residential use.

While these wood-based composite materials do offer a highly efficient way to use available wood material, because they typically consist of small particles (particle board), wood strands (OSB), flat pieces of low-grade wood species or some similar such material, products made from them do not have an attractive, grained appearance, but rather tend to have unsatisfactory aesthetic finishes.

However, this poor aesthetic finish is irrelevant to their use in a structural flooring system, because the structural flooring system is typically not visible in a finished residential home.

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