A friend of mine wants some flooring put down in her loft (just for storage, not as an extra room). Has anyone got any advice on how to go about this? (any links to web tutorials or anyfink?).
She would also like a pull-down ladder installed but I think this will be beyond my capabilities. F'instance, if the loft floor and the floor below aren't exactly parallel, wouldn't there be a problem with one leg of the ladder being on the floor while the other just 'hovers'?
Screwfix do a loft ladder and hatch kit. I have one of these which is sitting upstairs waiting to be fitted just as soon as I have got my head round my plumbing-system-to-be which is something else entirely. Fitting looks fairly straightforward to me and I would think that there is enough give in the system that 10mm of uneven floor will not be a problem
But then I have photographic evidence of me doing DIY aged 2 so maybe I have more experience that you do :)
Anna
~~ Anna Kettle, Suffolk, England |""""| ~ Lime plaster repairs / ^^ \ // Freehand modelling in lime: overmantels, pargeting etc |____|
I think most loft ladders allow for a bit of this - eg mine is attached to the floor of the loft, adjacent to the hatch via a bracket which allows the ladder to slide through it - ie, it retains the ladder (when erected) rigidly in the horizontal plane but allows free movement in the vertical plane. So half an inch difference in the levels of the two ladder feet on the landing loor would be neither here nor there in my case.
Alternatively, if there was no allowance for adjustment in the ladder, I suppose you'd need to pack up the fixing bracket on one side or t'other to level it.
Try and get a look at the instructions of whatever ladder you're interested in (they'll all be different) before you buy it, to see if it's within your capabilities.
You need to find out what sort of weight your loft joists will take first. Most are fine for box storage, but not all. Tell us width, height, length and spacing of the loft floor beams.
18mm T&G chipboard sheet is nailed down, available from any diy shed.
Well, ok. Its only screwing 2 brackets in place.
Yes, but you would have noticed it by now from people falling over a lot. If the diffrence is only slight, the ladder bends till it rests on both feet. Its not normally a problem.
All I can say is take your time to gather all the info, as it sounds like youre a bit lacking in handyman skills at the mo. Loft flooring is really quite easy, once youre clear on how to do it.
Assuming your joists are strong enough, flooring is very easy (with tongue and groove chipboard) so you don't need a tutorial.
Just push the chipboard into place and screw it down. I always prefer screws to nails since you can get them up again if you need to - though they are slower work. Drill small pilot holes in the chipboard and countersink them, then put the screws in.
One important question is what size sheets of chipboard you can get up through the whole. Most diy sheds sell 2400 x 600 sheets which could well be too big. There are also the much smaller sheets specially designed for going up through loft hatches. Bigger sheets save time if they do fit!
I used tongued and grooved floorboards for this rather than chipboard.
This was because my roof is trussed - i.e. additional timbers dropping to floor level - which makes manipulating large and heavy pieces of even loft panel chipboard quite difficult, especially with trying to cut in awkward shapes.
I was able to handle, cut and screw down lengths of floorboard quite easily and quickly.
If the area is more open, then chipboard is suitable, but it is heavy to lift around so you either need help or to allow a fair amount of time.
Regarding the ladder, actually that isn't as hard a job as you imagine. You can get aluminium ladders which fasten with brackets in front of the loft hatch and which are pulled down with a pole. These are very easy to fit and OK to use. The main thing is selecting the right type by size and design to fit the available space.
Alternatively you can get complete assemblies which have a replacement for the loft hatch and frame and where the ladder, typically wooden, folds within the frame and hatch door area, thus not wasting space in the loft. These fit by screwing the frame to the joists on either side. Not difficult to do, but a bit more work than the simple ladder.
In either case, you should be able to cut a small piece off of the bottom of one stile of the ladder if there is a small adjustment needed.
I too would screw them for the same reason, you (or someone else) may need access to the wiring underneath for example.
Screwing is only marginally slower than nailing if you use a good cordless driver. It's also much less likely to do any damage to the ceilings below.
Use screws like Screwfix Turbogold and you don't need to countersink. If you're really clever you might find screws (Screwfix Goldscrews?) which have an unthreaded section which would allow you to get away without drilling pilot holes in the chipboard.
If the loft is going to be used for storage it might be better to enlarge the hatch, so you can get big sheets through and improve access at the same time.
Reminds me of an aquaintance who went up into his roofspace for the first time in a few years, and got firmly stuck on the way down. His girth had expanded somewhat since the last time he'd been up there, but alas the hatch hadn't!
I must say that I almost suggested not bothering with the pilot holes anyway, even if using fully threaded screws. It's not as if the screws are doing anything more than locating the chipboard. Just make sure it's resting flat on the joists before driving the screw and all should be well.
You've got plenty of advice on the flooring, the loft ladders are not exactly an engineering masterpiece so the ladder has a fair amount of skew available through its sliding brackets, a sloping floor would not be a problem, either that or you could make sure that the timber bearer that you mount your brackets on is level with the floor
If the flooring is just for storage, ie. not covering every inch of the loft (I wouldn't bother any closer than about 1.5m from the edges as there's no headroom anyway), then would I need to worry about ventilation at all?
IIRC, the recommended depth of insulation these days is about 200mm (damn, mentioned insulation ... IMM's sure to be around soon ;)? I think my joists are quite a bit shorter than that though. I would like to improve the insulation at the same time, so what's normally done in this situation? Adding joist height by "re-joisting" over would be one option, but FAR too work intensive for my liking!!
One last point on roof felt. My roof is the original 1930's one and the tiles sit on the roof frame with no felt. The loft therefore gets very dirty. One option I've seen is this spray-on stuff that guys come around and do for about £200 I think. Another cheaper option I was thinking of was perhaps stapling strips of rood felt to the roof timbers. Any suggestions?
It's actually not too bad. You can add additional joists at right angles to the existing ones, for example, and add extra insulation between them.
This is a really bad idea because it is associated with people bodging roofs that really should be stripped and redone. The problem is that if the roof leaks for some reason, then water is trapped and rots the timbers. More than likely the roof of a 1930s house is still reasonably good, so you probably wouldn't do it for repair reasons. Nevertheless, there is a high risk that potential buyers or their surveyors would look and walk away.
Sheet polythene might be better, but do leave ventilation around the eaves at least.
It's not a bad idea, but it's still a lot of timber, sawing, drilling, screwing, swearing, injuring .... ;)
You could be right there. It also strikes me as being perhaps difficult if you needed to replace a tile after it. The timber is still in excellent condition thankfully, but some of the tiles are a little shakey.
Wouldn't polythene be more likely to condense water and "leak" it through the edges of the ceiling near the eves (hot air rising to meet freezing cold air near the tiles)? I was originally thinking of long strips between the beams all the way along rather than just nailing up sheets like a soft ceiling. I know it won't do a great deal for insulation, I'm really just looking to keep the place reasonably clean and slightly less damp.
As long as you have insulated fairly well and sealed air leaks from the interior of the house, you shouldn't have the circumstances for condensation in the loft at all.
I'm looking at this at the moment.. same thoughts about mounting joists at right angles, what about a floating floor on Kingspan panels? in fact it doesn't have to float completely because you could fix through them, the load will be spread by the boards over the top, not sure how it would cost out though, or will 3-4inches of Kingspan between the joists give sufficient insulation anyway? is there an equivalent thickness of Kinspan to Rockwool?
Purely to keep it clean. At the moment it's bare tiles. Therefore everything over time gets covered in thick, filthy dust! It seems to make it more damp as well, though that may not be the reason.
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