Rotten bathroom floor

[Rodney Preston]

Last year I stripped my daughters bedroom and repaneled, replacing suspect timber as I went. I even replaced a leaking window and built a new case. This year I decided to fix a soft spot at our toilet. After talking to my wife we decided that this would be the perfect time to re-do the entire bath. I have the tub and surround removed now. I have discovered that someone in the past has placed new plywood over most of the floor. Under the tub was not recovered and the particle board that was there is in terrible shape. I suspect that the floor joists are also rotten. I can see that the wall studs are deteriorated from water damage and the footer is rotten as well. I have found a few good articles on-line about floor replacement, but they never address replacing the floor joists. I may have gotten in over my head. Can anyone give me some insight about how to replace these joists if they are beyond salvage? I appreciate any help that you can provide. Thanks

[John]

The easiest way to repair floor joist is to simply "sister" or "scab" an additional 2x6 onto the the existing joist if there is any good lumber left to attach to. If not remove the old timber and replace it with new in order to maintian the same patterns for nailing or screwing down the new flooring. Caution: Never replace bad particle board with particle board. Always replace with plywood especially in your wet rooms i.e. baths, kitchen, laundry room. But be sure to get an exact measurement as some particle board can be 5/8 inch while other is 3/4.