Loft Costs

[Carolyn]

I have just had a joiner (used him several times-very reliable) tell me that he won`t be able to put any kind of extra flooring in my loft for me, as it is not strong enough to hold even cheap MDF tongue & groove flooring boards.. Basically, there aren`t strong enough joists up there, only `hangers` coming down from pearlings in the roof.. When I asked him wohat would need to be done, to make this area strong enough for any kind of flooring, he said that at least two crosspieces (same principle as RSJ`s) would need to be installed in the roofspace, which in turn, could support more `hangers` and make the loft floor stronger.. Talking about £8-900 in all, just for fitting the crossbeams, which, when I expected to spend around £200 for him to lay a cheap floor for me, was a bit of a shock.. I appreciate that old terraced houses such as mine weren`t built to accommodate heavy usage in the loft areas..

Is there any other way round this, or is he right, and I`m either going to have to fork out loads of dosh, or just live with the fact that I can`t have a substantial floor & thus won`t be able to store lots of heavy stuff up there (I currently have some flattened carboard boxes underneath a couple of suitcases & some sailing kit bags up there, as well as some paint pots, etc)

cheers

[Harvey Van Sickle]

On 12 Oct 2004, Carolyn wrote

If the ceiling "joists" are hung from the purlins, that suggests that the top floor of your house already sits partly within the roof space. The "stronger" ceiling joists that you're probably familiar with -- the ones that will take a bit of flooring -- sit on the house walls (that is, the whole of the area covered by the roof lies within the loft space).

Many spec-built 19th century houses were done to minimal standards, and if the loft is restricted to the area above the purlins, it wasn't intended to accommodate *any* storage *at all*, let alone flooring and storage.

Given that your fellow has in the past proved to be reliable, it sounds like you've got sound advice.

(My tuppence, anyway.)

[Christian McArdle]

It's lucky you had such a knowlegable joiner to call on. Some would have installed the flooring anyway. Hopefully, the big box of books wouldn't have crashed through onto someone's bed/cot whilst sleeping, but you couldn't have been sure.

It certainly sounds like the ceiling construction you have is totally unsuited to storage and will need substantial strengthening or wholesale replacement.

Christian.

[John Rumm]

& thus

Sounds like you got the right advice... Time to stump up! (900 sounds pretty resonable for that sort of job)

[N. Thornton]

I think I would disagree on that one. BR require large heavy joists to keep deflection to tiny proportions, basically to ensure no tiny plaster cracks can occur. While thats all very nice, it has little to do with what will work safely.

A softwood joist will sag by a good foot over a 20' length before it breaks. If you measure the existing joists and their spacing and length, it is possible to calculate what deflection you will get for what loading. There are a few loft floors that are unsafe for storage, but in almost all cases they are under reg specs but still safe for storage, but with a few possible gotchas.

Excessive loading would cause plaster cracks, and really extreme loads could be unsafe - but even if you were barmy enough to decide to store

5 tons of lead up there you'd see plenty of warning.

The other gotcha is that if there is rot in small dimension wood it will be much weaker.

If you board it and its not to regs it will cause problems at sale time. A historic house where not one single aspect of it conforms to modern regs is not seen as a problem, but modern noncompliant work is.

So... its not so simple.

NT

[Carolyn]

Cheers all for the sound advice; sounds like I`ve got to be careful about how I spread the (empty) suitcases up there, and I certainly won`t be storing all my old yachting mags in the loft, they will have to go into a bookcase in the spare bedroom! The fact that the plumbers` boots in the loft have already caused the ceiling Aertex to fall away under where the nails came out of the joists is warning enough for me...

Thanks again