Adding a loft ladder, boarding the loft, and adding a Velux window

Ricochet J

Ricochet J

Ricochet J

Soldato
Joined
29 Jun 2004
Posts
12,957
Hi,

We need an "occasional" room and the loft sounds logical. We have a very big loft, and I'd like to take advantage of this.

I'm thinking of asking someone to install a loft ladder, board the loft and even add Velux windows. It won't legally be classed as a room which is OK with me.

I don't want to spend a lot of money on it as we want to move in 2-3 years and need a temp solution for an occasional room to tide us until then. Is £5k reasonable to give me what I want?

What are your thoughts? Would it increase my house price?
 
What are you going to put up there? Might want to check the thickness of the joists, they might only be strong enough for storing some things, not a sofa + heavy furniture.
 
It's going to be used for:
  1. Storage - stuff like 10kg bags of flour (we bake a lot), 10kg bags of rice etc.
  2. Some gym equipment - dumbells, bench. I won't be using the room to jump/run etc. Just static on the spot weight lifting.
  3. A desk and office chair and some electronics lab equipment

What thickness do I need for it be safe a load bearing?
 
From my understanding if you do a partial conversion, as you have described with a velux, that isn't to regs it may impact upon your sale. When I was looking into it it was recommended to go all or nothing.

Edit, it may be worth contacting your local council building control and seeing how much work you can do before it's classed as habitable.
 
Last edited:
Ricochet J said:
It's going to be used for:
  1. Storage - stuff like 10kg bags of flour (we bake a lot), 10kg bags of rice etc.
  2. Some gym equipment - dumbells, bench. I won't be using the room to jump/run etc. Just static on the spot weight lifting.
  3. A desk and office chair and some electronics lab equipment

What thickness do I need for it be safe a load bearing?
Click to expand...

May be best to keep the gym equipment / baking goods on the ground floor.
You don't want to be lugging all that up and down.
 
If you don't add any insulation in to the roof space, then you'll find the room to be baking hot in summer and freezing cold in winter as it's outside your house's insulation barrier.
 
Apparently standard roof trusses/joists aren't fit to carry more than empty cardboard boxes.

When the author has inspected roofs there have been some occasions when the householder has to be advised to remove or lessen the amounts of goods stored in the roof for danger of overloading it. Typically the bottom chord of a truss is designed for a superimposed load of 0.25 kN/m2 which the author often refers to as empty cardboard boxes loading.
Click to expand...

https://www.localarchitectsdirect.co.uk/seven-deadly-sins-trussed-rafter-construction-part-1

Now I've read similar claims from people concerning the likes of LoftZone's floor system, whereby a false floor is constructed over the joists to allow for a thick layer of insulation and still giving the ability to walk and store things on top. Stating that you shouldn't be storing more than about 50kg per m2 as you have to factor the weight of the person accessing things up there also.

However in practice there must be countless homes ignoring this rule and storing items well over capacity in their lofts.
 
I wouldn't want to make it a permanent room with gym equipment and people walking around on normal joists.. I've had a friend do something like this, his entire ridge line is now crooked and several joists have moved as the ceilings below are bowed in..

Mind you, I had a heavy water tank, they put extra wood to double up the lower part of the trusses, and used chipboard to spread the loads across those spanned about 6 lower joists, and that must have weighted 200Kg when full..
 
My brother had this done about 4-5 years ago and loves it but when I researched it, the amount of negativity online surrounding this type of loft work is huge. A lot of it comes down to the structural integrity of the joists from what I read.

He had some form of sub floor installed, electrics, plastered, a 3 section wooden loft ladder and 2 velux windows and he paid around £5k. It looks like a proper room up there but I have no idea on the underpinnings. He has an exercise bike, TV and lots of guitars up there and uses it as a chill out space.

It's a very common occurrence around here as most houses are hipped roofs and not a lot of room for a proper staircase without needing a hip to gable conversion. It definitely pushes up the house prices rather than down, they just tend to be advertised as a hobby room with no building regs.
 
It will all depend on how your loft has been built as to what you sort of loads you can store up there after conversion

when I bought my home it had a dormer attic room that was supposedly an original room when the house was built (about 1900’s) that spanned over 2 of the bedrooms below, it had been modified over the years with a shower room & Saniflow toilet and a broom cupboard that housed another consumer unit partitioned into it all separated by plaster and lathe walls. The whole lot was sagging around 6 inch and had ruined the bedroom ceilings because the joists were only about 45 x 125mm and spanned over 4m each side of the structural wall that separated the below bedrooms. You could feel the floor bounce as you walked on it.

It didn’t worry me though as I was ripping it all out, I stripped the dormer room back to brick and structural wood including removing all floorboards, I also stripped the front bedroom back to brick and removed the ceiling . I replaced all the joists on that side of the attic with 175 x 75 c24 wood by pocketing out the tops of the bricks so the floor level would not change , I then sistered the joists in the other (rear) part of the room to strengthen and level that part so I didn’t disturb the ceiling in the rear bedroom. I insulated the walls , the roof and the floor/ ceiling taking care to leave space for airflow behind the insulation to prevent damp forming, had the electrics all re done , plumbing for CH and plaster boarded it all then skimmed. Cost me £5k for labour/materials and my time stripping it.

if your room is bare you could maybe get away with sistering the joists to beef it up to take more load


On another note I would check if that room is a suitable environment for storing flour first
 
Ricochet J said:
It's going to be used for:
  1. Storage - stuff like 10kg bags of flour (we bake a lot), 10kg bags of rice etc.
  2. Some gym equipment - dumbells, bench. I won't be using the room to jump/run etc. Just static on the spot weight lifting.
  3. A desk and office chair and some electronics lab equipment

What thickness do I need for it be safe a load bearing?
Click to expand...

I found a few charts that showed what size and grade of timber was needed for the spans and joist centres then I went the next size up just to be sure.

I currently use it for storage while I decorate and I have about 150kg weights (could be more) + bench , I also have 3 or 4 64litre boxes of books, full tool boxes , boxes of clothes, rolls of insulation, some IKEA units , the door (currently detached and sitting on the floor) loads of camping gear , air rifle , small appliances , tins of paint and all other various crap. It all adds up to a decent weight in there and The floor doesn’t move at all
 
The British Standards recommend any unaccessibole loft spae to be design for either 25kg/m2 load, or 90kg i.e. a little bit of storage and a person walking, occasionally. That's not to say that the joists cannot carry a higher load. To put it in context, some 15mm plywood/OSB/chipboard can be around 10kg/m2 alone.

You may fall foul of Building Regs based on the new use you are proposing - you should be able to get confirmation on your local Building Control website, or government ones.
 
building regs aside you really dont want to be sorting flour and rice in the loft, you will end up with flour weevils and rice mite. and you really dont want that in your loft as you will never get shot of them!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom