Loft conversion to give double-height living space

I hope you own an oil well, so that you can afford to heat it :)

AWEM

sounds a brilliant idea in principle, BUT structurally if you cut through the rafters the roof will collapse..

I thought about that, of course. But is there essentially any difference between heating a large double-height open plan space and heating two large single-height spaces separated by a ceiling/floor with a stairwell opening? Because the latter is plan B, so to speak.

There are perfectly feasible engineering solutions to that though, surely?

Well for a start all the heat will be at the top and not contributing to your comfort unless you are extremely tall :) I partially overcame this issue in a tall commercial unit once with a downdraught fan - but not very pleasant in a domestic situation

AWEM

Would a couple (or more) of conventional ceiling fans hung from the roof help to distribute the trapped heat? A lovely stylish solution, if so.

Ceiling fans can be very effective at moving warm air around. Currently sitting in a living room with two - bit like a Chinook. :-)

Sounds a lovely idea. Two immediate thoughts spring to mind.

Just my 2d's worth. Good luck. Nick.

Thank you.

Great idea, thanks. I had a quick search and found this, which sounds promising:

That's a US product but presumably there's a UK equivalent or something similar. I'll keep looking

leave the rafters as a feature and have tall book shelves [g]

Could look good at that. Sketching out ideas tonight has thrown up some some interesting points: ceiling lights for the areas with no ceiling will presumably have to be dropped on long wires from the roof or suspended from transverse cables; two Velux windows which would be perfectly workable in the plan B preserve-the-ceilings scheme (since they could be reached from the upper-story floor) would have to be remotely operatable; cabling which currently crosses the lower rooms in the loft space needs fairly major rerouting, and so on.

The weight of the roof makes the bottom of it tend to spread out, pushing the walls out. The rafters prevent that. Unless you feel a desperate need to get rid of them, I would retain the rafters, or at least every other one, with suitable beefing-up. Where you have a mezzanine floor, that won't be a problem anyway.

The rafters then provide a place to put the ceiling lights.

Why?

Won't it make the whole house less insulated and thus hotter in the summer and colder in the winter, and there is more space to heat as well of course. Brian

You can buy Zalman quiet fans, which this uses, from computer component suppliers so you could probably make your own.There are plenty of pictures on the heatstick website to show you how to do it.

It did occur to me, looking at that site, that it looked like a straightforward DIY job.

Thanks for that; I'll take a look.

Because I like the unclaustraphobic open-plan feel I've already achieved on the existing ground floor and want to retain it for any new rooms formed in the loft. Because it would be a visually striking and unusual thing to try. Because I want to see if it would work.

I don't see how. At the moment, the loft is boarded and accessed by a space-saver staircase through a permanent opening, so the whole bungalow is effectively one space anyway. And there's 25mm of Celotex between the rafters which would certainly be upgraded with a full conversion. If I do this, the place will be more insulated than at present, not less.

I accept that opening up to the rafters will make the house *feel* bigger even if it actually isn't, but feeling bigger and more open is exactly the effect I'm after.

Forgive me if I'm misunderstanding you but I think we're talking about joists, aren't we? And I take your point, but can't help thinking that the whole open-plan idea will look compromised if some are retained: the effect might well be that things are unfinished, waiting for the ceiling to go in.

And run any necessary cables. Yes, there is that.

Yes, I meant joists, but I thought you were the one talking about rafters, so I just followed suit? Anyway, we meant the same thing. Basically, you need to join the two sides of the house, or the A-shaped roof will tend to push them apart.

How you do that is up to you, or your structural engineer, and as you say you need to get the aesthetics right. Possibly, you can replace the joists with steel cables?

$70 !!??!

looks ripe for a diy version - hidden duct & QUIET fan?

Jim K