In order to get a bit more door height in my planned extension I'd like to put a small downward slope on the floor. The floor is 4 metres long.
How much slope can you put on a floor without people noticing it. My guess is about 0.5 % (5mm in a metre).
Does anyone know what is the maximum slope that is not noticable?
thanks,
Robert
My builder left the loft conversion floor with a slope of ~20mm over a span of 4.5m. This was so noticeable that I took the trouble to fix it.
You will not believe how much effort that took!
Brian
I have around 10mm over 1.5m between two rooms down a passage past the stairs. I cannot detect it even knowing it is there.
That is about the same slope as in my hallway. Last night after a very good bonfire and lots of alcohol the girlriends father fell over in the hallway and he is blaming slope on the floor.
There's no answer to that because it's subjective. A better question would be "I'd like to put in a slope of X - would that be noticeable?"
My gut feeling is that I think you'd get away with a bit more than 0.5%
David
Unless the slope is gratuitous (am think Devon cottage) IME minor slopes aren't noticeable (unless you play marbles) - what is noticeable are bumps.
My kitchen was 1.5" out over 5m. If it had been planar, I would have saved myself a lot of trouble and left it. It wasn't, it had 1" bumps over 2' which you could feel with your feet, hence spending a lot of time and effort flattening (and levelling) it.
We have a short bit of passageway that drops almost 2" over 18" (I can convert that to metric for you if you want). It's been like since the house was built 60 years ago, I guess. It's not an issue, and nobody has fallen there in the last 12 years since we have been in the house.
Based on that, I'd be tempted to put the whole of your 2cm drop over the first foot or two as you enter the room and have the rest level. Otherwise, you'll have problems with kitchen units and worktops which will never be square to a sloping floor - I think the worktop needs to be horizontal.
Units usually have adjustable feet - you'd only need to trim the kickboard. But you have a point Re: appliances - many are adjustable, not all are.
When I bought my house, the centre was supported by the fireplace foundations and the outside of the house had sunk all around. A 4 metre room was 600mm lower at one end than the other. That was really hard to walk in! The doors had diagonals cut off the top and bottom.
Due to my overusage of sand as a levelling compound under Celotex floor insulation, and the way that I packed the centre of the floor space, there is a slightly raised area down the middle of the length of the garage. I guess it is probably about 7-8mm raised at the centre of a 2.4m span. It's not noticeable in everyday use. It worried the hell out of me when I was fitting skirtings etc - but once carpet etc was laid, it looked fine, and is not noticeable.
Re: the loft conversion that Brian fixed - I wonder if that was also because upon entering the loft from the floor below, the slope was more noticeable, and hence 'felt' more noticeable when standing on it?
JW
Agreed - I fitted kitchen units and worktop across the 2.4m span of the converted garage (which was raised by 7-8mm in the centre. The units all had adjustable feet, so it was no issue. Biggest problem I had was an untrue wall, where the plasterboard came out about 20mm more at one side than the other.
Regarding the worktop - if it's sitting on cupboards, then that is taken care of by the unit feet - and if not, then you will just be cutting legs/end panels to the correct length - and battening to the wall at the correct height, so not an issue.
Hadn't thought about problems with appliances - but surely at the end of the day, some wooden packing, or some of those plastic coloured shims would do the job?
JW
Thank you all for your help with this. In fact my roof is 8m long with the kithcen units on the first 4m and the slope will be ion teh second 4m leading to the outside doors. The other possibklity is to simply put in a step half way, which might also help tp make it look less long.
thanks again,
Robert
I think you mean 200mm or 20cm at 4.5m to be noticeable. you can't possible notice 20mm at 4.5m
You can.
Especially if s a hard smooth floor and you drop a ball on it, or spill a liquid..
Replying to seven year old posts ??????
Why not stick to sensible posts like this, rather than trying to be funny?
Why not STFU and stop trying to be superior?
How is his answer "sensible" ?
Any fool can tell if a floor is sloping by dropping a ball on it or spilling a liquid, just as they could by using a spirit level.
The question being posed all those years ago is how much it would have to slope for you to notice it without the aid of tools or apparatus of any kind;either deliberately or by accident.
I rather suspect that you've rather underestimated the stupidity of the person you responded to in this particular instance.
HTH
I genuinely think that 2cm in 4m would be noticeable. Maybe not just walking along it, but when you put a run of kitchen units or a wardrobe on it.
In practice, you have have dead level -> 1:50 (over about 1.5m) -> dead level and be utterly unable to see it.
I have this in the passage way from my kitchen to lobby.
OK - if you had this in an area where you could place a table with 4 legs, you'd get some rocking, but for a planar slope, no normal person would notice, without getting out a level.
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