loft hatch and boarding

donna877

The survey on my house said the loft insulation was satisfactory but that ventilation was not, and advised ventilating roof tiles be fitted.

The loft hatch is small, but there is only approx 3 inches space to widen it.

Is there a rough cost for widening this and boarding the loft so that it can be used for storage? would need to be safe to walk on. At present it is part-boarded.

Norman_Castle

Most areas have companies specialising in fitting hatches and boarding. They should be able to advise fitting costs depending on whats possible in your home.

sevenhills

donna877 wrote: »

The loft hatch is small, but there is only approx 3 inches space to widen it.

Is there a rough cost for widening this and boarding the loft so that it can be used for storage? would need to be safe to walk on. At present it is part-boarded.

If you are meaning that a joist is blocking widening it more, a specialist loft company could easily sort that and widen the hatch to your requirements.

TELLIT01

donna877 wrote: »

The survey on my house said the loft insulation was satisfactory but that ventilation was not, and advised ventilating roof tiles be fitted.

The loft hatch is small, but there is only approx 3 inches space to widen it.

Is there a rough cost for widening this and boarding the loft so that it can be used for storage? would need to be safe to walk on. At present it is part-boarded.

There doesn't seem to be any obvious connection between inadequate ventilation and enlarging the loft hatch. How large is the usable area of the loft?

Brookside88

I've got mine booked in to be done in sept - £1500 ish for a 3 bed semi, joists raised and fully boarded and larger hatch installed with wooden pull down ladder

ANDY597

I'm doing a loft conversion right now. Self build.

Flooring out your loft really depends on the size of your joists and manner of construction. This essentially determines the weight that can be safely spread across the top of these joists, ie load

To make it habitable it mostly always means doubling up the joists. In my case adding 145 timbers well nailed to existing.
The previous 145s being determined strong enough on their own for storage and boarding but not habitation. This was specified by the structural engineer.

Loft hatch is easy. What will happen is that a joist or joists will be cut and cross braced with new timber to make a larger opening. Not a problem and a relatively easy day's work for a joiner or loft specialist.

Flooring will require require some additional calcs on load, with existing joist sizes and the spans of timber. Info on this can be found by googling span tables.

Example. All my joists space relatively short distances on top of solid brick wall plates.
But, more modern houses have plasterboard internal walls so the load is spread differently across external wall plates and both load bearing and non load bearing stud walls internally.

Hope that makes sense, my explanation perhaps not the best.