How much to strengthen loft floor, but not full conversion?

[Steve]

I'd love to get my loft converted into a habitable room, but have been told by friends that it'd cost from £8k-£12k to get done properly, which makes it out of bounds at the moment. Therefore, I was just going to board it myself and use it for storage, as I'd like to make some use of the space.

However, I was wondering, how much do you think it'd cost to just get the loft floor strengthened, as if it were getting converted, but nothing else?

I could then use it for storage (albeit, with a stronger floor for peace of mind), but be able to do work on it bit by bit over the next few years, doing one step of the conversion at a time (DIY where possible, and getting professionals in where necessary).

My house is a 1950's semi. I just wondered if anyone knew a ball-park figure to get this done before I start calling around and getting quotes. I don't want to call people out if it's still going to cost a fortune. I'd also be interested to know if anyone thinks that this is a bad idea for whatever reason.

Thanks,

Steve

[John Rumm]

Depends on what sort of conversion you are attempting to do. Something that you DIY, and keeps within the bounds of the roof (i.e. no changes to the roof like additions of dormers), could be cheaper to do £4 - £5k perhaps.

How does your loft compare to mine:

you need to get an engineer to design it, then allow say £300 - £500. The steel, wood, and fixings, plus floor boarding probably cost about £1200. Total time to do the floor would be about 14 man days. So if you are paying a builder, then anything from £2.5k and up for the labour. Depending on the circumstances you may also need scaffolding to get the new joists etc into the loft.

While it is just for storage you could probably save the costs of a submission to building control. Obviously once you start turning the floor into a conversion proper then they need to be involved.

[meow2222]

Once you know what steps the process involves its not hard to DIY it, and usually not expensive, nothing like the figures you mentioned.

This may help clarify one step of the process some more:

you've got your design you can look up what the materials would cost.

NT

[Steve]

Okay, well I definitely need to get someone in then to give me some prices.

compare, it does look pretty similar. Your house (the front of it) also looks very similar to the houses in the adcajcent streets to mine, so although my house is a smaller 3 bed semi, I'd imaging that it'd be pretty similar in the loft anyway if I hadn't have seen your loft pictures.

I assume that these figures are for the full conversion as they come to around £4,200. How would you say the materials for just stranghtening the floor came to, and how many days labour would you estimate that took?

Yes. By the way, since my post, I read that you no longer (or will no longer) need to get planning permission for loft conversions, though I'm sure there are certain limits/rules you still have to fit in with.

Thanks,

Steve

[Steve]

Thanks for the link, I'll check that out.

Steve

[John Rumm]

That *was* the figure for just doing the floor. It took two of us about

6 days elapsed for the main floor structure, and then I was allowing another couple of days for boarding it out and other bits that need doing. If you are going on to fully convert it would also pay you to lay in pipework and wiring at the same time to save making the job harder later.

With the simplest loft conversions, the floor is the biggest job. Roof windows can be installed from inside the loft. Those will be the next most expensive bits (probably £500 for a couple of largish ones). Next comes insulation and boarding for the underside of the rafters. If you produce your own drawings and structural calcs then you could save the engineers fee. If you want something more elaborate with changes to the roof structure and dormers etc then you will spend significantly more on the later stages after the floor is done.

If you ignore labour, the the costs of my full conversion cam to about £2.2K in fees (arechitect, building control, skips, scaffolding, and having the flat roof felted (the bit I did not DIY). Materials were £10.5K (that included all fittings and fixtures, carpets, paint etc).

To have a builder produce something similar I would expect to pay £35K ish.

In general you never did need planning permission, unless you were in a conservation area / listed building, or you wanted to alter the front aspect of the roof.

However the work must comply with building regulations (for obvious reasons, they stop you building a death trap) and it must be supervised and ultimately signed off by building control. Note that Building regulations and building control are not related to or in anyway the same thing as planning permission and planners.

Without a completion certificate you may at best have difficulty selling the place in future, at worst you could be required to take down the work if it is not to a suitable standard.

(this is covered under the Planning and Building Regulations" section on my main page)