Boarding out my loft

sevenhills

Before you start laying boards, check the depth of your insulation. Government guidelines recommend a minimum 270mm thickness of insulation blanket. But joists are usually no more than 100mm deep, so this would be impossible to achieve and still put a floor on top. Furthermore, squashing insulation down to fit joist height is a bad idea as this halves it’s effectiveness — doubling your heat loss.

The best solution is to build a raised loft floor above the insulation (details of which are shown below). You can still board directly on to the joists if you want, but it is worth noting that this would not pass a building control inspection, because you wouldn’t have the full 270mm depth of insulation, required by regulations.

I know that there are different size loft legs, 150mm(Screwfix), 175mm and 270mm; maybe others sizes too. With limited roof height, loft leg size could be an issue.
I am still searching for information about adding strength to the joists.

Warwick_Hunt

sevenhills wrote: »

Before you start laying boards, check the depth of your insulation. Government guidelines recommend a minimum 270mm thickness of insulation blanket. But joists are usually no more than 100mm deep, so this would be impossible to achieve and still put a floor on top. Furthermore, squashing insulation down to fit joist height is a bad idea as this halves it’s effectiveness — doubling your heat loss.

The best solution is to build a raised loft floor above the insulation (details of which are shown below). You can still board directly on to the joists if you want, but it is worth noting that this would not pass a building control inspection, because you wouldn’t have the full 270mm depth of insulation, required by regulations.

I know that there are different size loft legs, 150mm(Screwfix), 175mm and 270mm; maybe others sizes too. With limited roof height, loft leg size could be an issue.
I am still searching for information about adding strength to the joists.

Realistically you’re not going to be able to do it.

Ganga

VfM4meplse wrote: »

I sort of get this. If the works going to be done, it may as well be done once and cater for all eventualities than repent later on. For example, if the property later becomes tenanted there is no telling what might go up there.

I was told (frend of a friend scenario, no one wants to admit to having thick friends!!) that some bright spark tried to store a car engine in a loft - and it fell straight through the ceiling.

Went into the loft one day looking for something and found a couple of car wheels c/w tyres and a wing off a car,they belonged to my son,he had changed some wheels on his car and was hanging on to the old ones " just in case " as for the car wing,god knows.
As an aside,the more roof storage you have,the more rubbish you will store - fact:rotfl::rotfl:

Gloomendoom

I successfully strengthened 2" by 3" joists in my attic.

Essentially, I turned them into engineered joists. It was a lot of work.