Dave Matthews wrote:
Hi folks,

My brother and I were recently lifting some chipboard flooring in
my house in order to lay a new electrical cable. Because the
chipboard was tongue & groove, rather than ripping out the whole
floor, we decided to use a circular saw to just cut out the section
we needed to get at. So little bro is happily sawing away when water
starts to gush out! What had happened was that rather than running
the water and gas pipes through the vertical centre of the joinsts,
bl**dy McAlpines had simply cut shallow grooves into the *tops* of
the joists and laid the pipes in them. In fact on one particular
joist, the grooves were too shallow and caused the pipes to protrude
slightly above the top of the joist - hence the chipboard flooring
was literally resting on the pipes and I'd been unwittingly walking
on them for the last thirteen years!

Anyway we got the leak sorted but I was wondering whether this was
common practice in modern construction (my house was built in 1991)
as it seems to me to be a literally explosive safety issue!

I have now marked the boards in bright red marker pen to warn
whomever buys the property off me!

Hi Dave,

To answer the question, yes it is 'normal' to notch the top of the joist for
pipes and cables and it's usually done because it's easier than trying to
drill a series of holes through the centre of the joists for each pipe and
cable - BTW, welcome to the club and the moral of your story - is ALWAYS
check before cutting or nailing through floorboards :-)


Brian G