Been doing material estimates based on traditional housing methods. To no surprise they are expensive. So, I have been looking at alternative materials and fabrication methods. Right now its flooring. Slab and ground based flooring is not a construction option at this time.

Pricing out the combined totals of finished flooring turned out to be quite an eye opener. When you add up the totals of supporting 2x8's, 3/4" sub-flooring plywood, underlayment, and even the low end laminate flooring the price is pretty high. Then add in that some type of bottom has to be on this structure. Like a ceiling or exterior siding for under a home.

My estimates for a floor using these methods start with a base estimate of $2.60 per square foot. Then when you add on even Linoleum or "on sale" laminate flooring its typically another dollar. Thats skimping. Decent laminate floors are typically are in the $3-10+ range per square foot by themselves.

So... after thinking about this, I started to wonder about other ways to make a solid floor. While at it, why not walls or possibly a roof as well.

What I was thinking about doing is making a press fixture. What it would be is a 20' long piece of tubing. Off of this are guide supports for lumber or perhaps other material. Basically 2x4 or larger lumber would be placed by rows into the press. Each row would have a glue/adhesive applied to it. Another layer would be added, perhaps nailed to the previous one, and more glue applied.

After this stack was 2-4' high, a cap steel tube would be placed on top. screw type clamps or perhaps hydraulic bottle jacks would then be used to press the the wood pieces together as the adhesive sat.

What I was thinking is that perhaps I could make 20' long one piece floor strips. Perhaps those being 24" wide. Make a simple drill hole/dowel system for where they could lock up when fit in the field. They would be 3.5" or 5.5" thick.

So this is where the question comes to our resident board Engineer. What would be the estimated live load of such a member split across three supports? (what about 5?)

Laminated from 2x4, 2x6, and perhaps 2x8?

The idea would be to make wall panels from 2x3 or 2x4 wood. If it works, I was thinking that the wall panels could be made from 2x4 scrap pieces. I have noticed on Craigslist for example where I could get scrap wood pieces for next to nothing.

The panels could be then taken out of the fixtures. Then placed on sawhorses. This way you could use woodfiller on any problem areas. Then sand and stain it while it was at waist height. On thing about floor work is all the man hours on your knees. Its alot more draining and physically demanding.

Right now I was thinking about lumber. What about other material which made itself available? Old fence pickets? Dried Bamboo?I t seems that the material could be flexible in choices. It would then come down to the press fixture and the quality of adhesive being used. For the indoor floor application I was thinking about using this:

Titebond III Ultimate Wood Glue



The advantage to Titebond III is that its non-toxic and cleans up easily. The thing is, its more expensive.

The other alternative is to go into boat building and maritime adhesives. These are a bit more complicated to use in both application and safety. But they could be cheaper and even stronger.

Like Weldwood Resorcinol

The Weldwood products are expensive. But they convey one of the applications of choosing materials from boatbuilding.


So thats what I am thinking and was looking for constructive feedback on. Basically gluing and squishing shit together as a construction material. I have one half done drawing of ideas for the press.

Found this glue which is much cheaper on the 5gal level:

Ol' Yeller water resistant glue

$72 for 5 gallons in bulk.

I'm not sure I follow your description completely.

Basically, you're saying you'd be gluing 2x4's together, side by side, to make a wide laminate beam? Would the 2x4's be standing up or laying down? In other words, would their 3-1/2" sides be glued together, or their 1-1/2" sides?

You said they'd be 3.5" or 5.5" thick, so I'm guessing you'll be gluing them together so as to take advantage of their strong axis. They'll be pretty damned stout, that's for sure.

As for strength, with them being glued together side-by-side, I would just assume that it was equal to having individual single-length lumber side-by-side. What the gluing does is allow them to be built from shorter pieces, where the glued joints help them act together so that the end-to-end joints don't matter. It's a good idea if you can make it cost effective.


The way I'm modeling this is by taking single-length members, 20' long, and finding the max allowable load on each individual member, then applying it across enough members to translate it to a usable number (in pounds per square feet).

Using a 20' long laminate beam from 2x4's:

Supported at 3 points: 305 PSF (will develop 3/8" deflection at that load) - moment controls
Supported at 4 points: 860 PSF (will develop 1/4" deflection at that load) - moment controls
Supported at 5 points: 1428 PSF (will develop 1/8" deflection at that load) - moment controls


Using a 20' long laminate beam from 2x6's:

Supported at 3 points: 755 PSF (will develop 1/4" deflection at that load) - moment controls
Supported at 4 points: 2122 PSF (will develop 3/16" deflection at that load) - moment controls
Supported at 5 points: 3264 PSF (will develop 1/16" deflection at that load) - shear controls


Using a 20' long laminate beam from 2x8's:

Supported at 3 points: 1313 PSF (will develop 3/16" deflection at that load) - moment controls
Supported at 4 points: 3264 PSF (will develop 1/8" deflection at that load) - shear controls
Supported at 5 points: 4301 PSF (will develop 1/16" deflection at that load) - shear controls


OK, having said all that, I think it's pretty obvious that your floor live loads are way, way beyond anything you'd really 'need'. This would be a stout floor, even with 2x4's. These are unfactored, raw loads up to shear or moment failure. To be safe, we should back off those numbers by a factor of 1.7, which is the live load safety factor from the 2003 International Building Code (which is the one everyone is using these days).

In a nutshell, even with 2x4's, made into 20' long panels, supported only at the ends and midspan, you could still have a safe working live load of 179 PSF. That would be a heck of a stout floor. We could even be generous and put another safety factor of 3 on it, just to account for gluing and joints, and still have about a 60 PSF safe live load. If it were me, I wouldn't consider using anything larger than 2x4's for this application. And I'd only do it in the actual floors that people and furniture will be on. This would be way overkill for a roof or walls.

Thanks for your input here. This idea came about years ago when I was looking for an alternative way to make workshop table tops. One of the side benefits of researching this idea, is that I could make stout steel work bench stands which use laminated and glued 2x4's as the table top.

Stacked together where the 3.5" sides are glued together, one 8' length is the approximate price per square foot. It takes (8) 1.5" lengths side by side to make a foot. New lumber costs from retail hardware changes place 2x4 studs at around $2 ea. My goal would be able to add the glue, sanding, staining and sealing costs to be under $4 per square foot. I think I could reasonably break $3 per foot if I could find a decent glue supplier with 55 gallon drum discount.

Thats dirt cheap for the properties of floor I could make. The issue then is man hours.

My interest in doing walls is mostly because of cost. I agree it would be overkill... but look at it this way. On Craigslist I see odd cut to length lumber for sale. For example, a few weeks ago was and add for 300+ lengths of 2x4 material between 6 to 7' long for $0.50 ea. What I am thinking is that perhaps I could build panels from scrap materials for even less cost. For a floor.. I want premium. But if the walls are overkill, then perhaps I can use a wider range of low cost or discounted materials.

That is where I am coming from. Any idea of the "R" value of a floor or wall like that?


My other questions would be perhaps what if I made 4'x10' panels of this stuff made from 2x4's" The split that with support on two or three centers. The advantage with reducing the length would ease logistics issues. But I understand that comes with a serious relative price in strength.