Timber Floor Service Considerations

Timber floor construction for multi story buildings has many advantages but provides a few challenges when it comes to services. Some items to consider when designing with timber floors include:

  1. Where is the fire rating: Fire rated ceilings that are also the finished ceiling require fire rated or surface mounted light fittings and fire rated HVAC grilles/diffusers which are expensive and complicated to install
  2. Joist penetration restrictions: Joists can only be penetrated in a zone in the middle and often require additional flanges for penetrations. This greatly restricts how far the drains can run and may result in more risers being required.
  3. Joist layout vs fixtures above: with less space between joists the locations of fixtures like toilets and shower need to be considered to ensure they do not sit directly above a joist

A good option to combat most of these items is a lower “finished” ceiling under the fire ceiling with sufficient space between to run the services.