Loft ladder - general and specific advice please...

Nothing much to it, other than to mount the flap in its own frame and then fit the whole thing between the joists. Hanging a flap from an existing opening is usually a PITA. I made mine from blockboard, which is fairly light, and takes hinge screws well on the edges (unlike chip or mdf). I might use one of these if I was doing it again

1. make sure there is sufficient clearance for the ladder to fold up properly without fouling other joists or the hatch opening.
2. secure the ladder top piece to a joist and not just a cross piece between joists for the hatch opening. The folding and unfolding the ladder could place to much strain on it.
3. an outwards opening hatch door makes life easier.

I was in a top floor flat up until about 18 month ago and a cheap loft ladder from B&Q was just the job. The hatch was an outward opening plastic affair but served the purpose (also from B&Q by the look of it). My new house is 40ish years old and has an inward opening piece of thick plywood. The layout of the stairwell, landing bannister and roof beams & joists makes it difficult to place a loft latter. I haven't done much about it yet as I now have a Garage to keep all my crap in :)

get a Youngman Ladder .. they are built for the job, and firm will be there in years to come if you need spares.

Assuming you have a reasonable sized hatch and headroom then the wooden loft ladders from B&Q are good. I like mine much better than the piece of aluminium crap it replaced. Then again, that was possibly the cheapest and nastiest loft ladder I have ever come across.

I have also fitted an alloy one in my previous house (previous owners took the ladder with them!) . This was a 3 part one and reasonably O.K. but I like the wooden one better.

There was more effort fitting it - I had to fix a plywood platform in the loft for the ladder to fix to - but the effort was worth it.

HTH

Dave R