Loft Conversion - Advice

jimmmyc

We had our loft converted by a professional company about 3 years ago and it was a major pain, but worth it now, its a lovely big room.
Planning controls are getting tighter all the time, so make sure you check with the local authority and call the building inspector, they are more than happy to help and came out to my job on 3 occassions when I had concerns. They sometimes issue leaflets, there is also party wall considerations if your not in a detached home.

Be very clear about the job you want and the finish. Make sure it is in writing and don't pay your stage payments until you are entirely happy. Try to have at least 20% left for the final payment as often the finishing jobs, plastering, joinery may be what you are least happy with. The general build is fairly straight forward although when they put the stairs in it can create a mess from the loft, try to clean your old loft before hand.

Also check your boiler can cope with the extra distances and fittings, especially if your having a shower up there. Make sure the electrics are on a seperate circuit and not your 1st floor loop.

Go for the maximum space you can have too, its worth it, we had a dorma on the back and it gives so much room.
We kept some loft space at the front which is great for storage and also for pipe runs, so you can get to them if need be.

As for flooring, I would imagine wood would be very noisy before we had carpet ours was, also check what type of flooring they put down, chipboard t & G can be very squeeky if its moves. Go for boards, they will cost more but worth it.

If the company gripes at any of this-find another.

emma_b_4

how much approx did it cost?

chris123

we had an architect come round and all the rules regulations have changed a lot. we have a loft conversion but without the dormer so to have that put in meant adding bigger steals frames plus a host of other safety features. my advise is to get an architect to draw up proper plans then ask him for builders he would recommend and then start getting quotes. as for the reason the loft is cold in the winter, its the same as a fridge warm air rises to give a cold spot on top. in your fridge the motor in the bottom makes heat and then chills the top part.

hope this helps

glenstan

we had an architect design the room, he had to bring in a structural engineer and we only live in a very modest bungalow, the results are brilliant and strong enough to hold 10 sumo wrestlers. a new loft insulation material was introduced at the time we put plans in, when inspectors came, ours was the first time they had seen material in situ
Had to have a staircase designed to fit for fire regs, we have 3 windows all have to meet regs 1 of them an escape window , best bit is dd only stayed here a month then moved in with fiancee, but at least we know we are safe and can pass on all paper work to our offspring for their inheritance Lucky bit is i come from large family so had joiner, plasterer , plumber, heating engineer all at cost

aurora_borealis_2

We had ours done about three years ago. We added two bedrooms and a bathroom with two dormer extensions. You would never know that it wasn't part of the original house. It took about four months and cost £24000.

Feej_2

We had a really good experience when ours was done; small but excellent company who became friends, took 6 weeks, provided extra bathroom, large double bedroom and small single/office in our 3-bed terrace.

All planning permission, drawings, structural calcs etc were handled by the company and we paid in chunks at pre-agreed stages. Very worthwhile all round, and when we came to sell, went very quickly. Cost £15,000 10years ago.

This was in the london area. I'd be very happy to recommend them - still in business. PM me if you'd like more info.

TIP: Whoever you use, ask to see a couple of their previous jobs and talk to the clients unaccompanied.

All the best,
Feej

reverie

I moved last year to a house with a converted loft, it is a lovely bedroom. However, if I had done the work myself I think I would have gone the extra mile and had a dormer window rather than Velux. It would be nice to have not such a reduced height.

Still, it is a fab room and does add 'wow' factor because if they are done well, they are such a nice surprise to find at the top of the house!

[Deleted User]

Feej - PM for you.

lynneinjapan

I had mine done last year. I'm in a 1930s semi which originally had a hipped roof (i.e. sloping from about half way along, with horizontal guttering all the way round), which would have left me with too little headroom over most of the floor area for the job to be worthwhile, so I got the gable end built up so that it was vertical, giving maximum ceiling height for the full width of the room. Didn't have any dormer windows though, just Velux-type. The additional volume created was within the permitted development limits for my house so I didn't need planning permission. However, as others have said, there's no escape from building regs (if you want the room to be classed as "habitable")!

I employed an architect who used a structural engineer and got the drawings approved by the council (cost £700 if I remember rightly) and the actual building work cost about £32000 in total - inlcuding a complete new roof (which I would shortly have been in need of anyway) and some work on the first floor to knock the bathroom and loo into one and put in a shower room where the airing cupboard used to be (I'd had new central heating, with a combi boiler, put in the previous year, so the hot water tank was redundant). Huge RSJs (steel beams) were needed along the front & back of the house to support the new loft floor, as the original rafters weren't adequate to meet building reqs. The loft room is just one large room, with cupboards under the eaves so that I still have some of the storage space I used to have in the loft. The builder didn't allow for these cupboards in his original £30K quote though, so they cost an extra £750. I also bought the shower, tray, enclosure and basin for the shower room, and a heated towel rail for the bathroom, so that was what took the price up to ~£32K.

None of the first floor rooms were really habitable during the two months or so while the work was going on. Obviously the bathroom and loo were out of action for a while (though I did still have a downstairs loo). Also, chunks were taken out of both of the bigger bedrooms - what used to be one bedroom door became the door to the loft staircase (I'd have liked to have had it over the original staircase but there wasn't enough headroom), and that bedroom also lost a bit to the shower room. So it's still a double in estate agent's speak but there's not really much room for a double bed AND storage of clothes etc. (I kind of wish I'd got the whole rear chimney breast taken out, right down to the ground floor, while I was at it - it would have made the room shapes easier to deal with!) The other big bedroom didn't lose much - just a bit of space where there used to be a top box over a fitted wardrobe - but it was messy when they knocked through from the loft. I'd stashed a load of stuff away in the small bedroom, thinking that that would be unaffected, but unfortunately there was a roof support strut in the corner of the room so that had to come out when the old roof came off! They ended up having to replaster all the upstairs ceilings, which left me with a fortnight's frantic decorating to do before the family came down to stay for my wedding (the carpets only went down the day they arrived!) but a nicer house at the end of it all.

Spendless

lynneinjapan. Your description of your house sounds similar to mine (also a 30s semi). What was yours 2 or 3 bed to start off with?