Underfloor storage and underfloor access

[David WE Roberts]

Two questions in a single thread :-)

Firstly, when we finally get our ground floor revamp under way we will be replacing the floorboards with chipboard to get a level across various different underfloors, then putting some kind of laminate (probably) on top.

There will be quite a lot of stuff including plumbing, soil pipes and electrics under the suspended floor so if we need to access them in the future this could be a little tricky without ripping up large areas of flooring. So (assuming there is enough crawl space under the floor) has anyone built a trap door to allow under floor access?

Again, if there is a significant underfloor void, has anyone used this for storage? Trap door over a mini wine cellar (one bottle deep, perhaps) sounds possible.

Cheers

Dave R

[S Viemeister]

The previous owners of our house had two trapdoors, and there's now a third one, put in when the new boiler was installed. This last one is in the floor of the larder.

[TMC]

Cellar?

Coal store with access from the pavement to pour coal in

didn't most victorian terraces use the underfloor void for storage?

trap doors can be a little narrow depending on joist spacing

easy to cut out a section of joist and fix cross timbers same as enlarging a loft hatch

I read somewhere of a guy who decided to extend the area of his 'celler' by removing a side wall

yes

really

saw the pictures

[David WE Roberts]

1930s semi and no cellar (worse luck - always wanted one). Just pondering on using the resources (if any) under the house. The house I grew up in had a large trapdoor under the lounge floor and a decent under floor void. Floor joists ran across mini brick walls and the foundations were concrete all the way across. In the early 1960s with my brother in charge we rewired the ground floor of the house from 5/15 amp to 13 amp by crawling around under the floor. We first put a second hatch under the stairs because lifting the lounge carpet all the time was a pain. After the onset of fitted carpets the lounge trap door was inaccessible. I wonder if the current owners even know it is there.

I think I have confirmed that I need a trapdoor somewhere discreet like under the stairs.

Just leaves the question of under floor storage. Possibly like you get in yachts where a trap door lifts and you can keep your beer cool in the bilges :-)

Cheers

Dave R

[TMC]

if the house is on a slope then the bit furthest down is likely to have a decent void

My Mum and Dad's bungalow has almost no void at the front (just one bluebrick here and there below the joists)

At the rear the void is big enough to stand up in

we though about making a wine cellar but the integrated garage on the north side of the house was well cool enough

Regards

[Andrew Gabriel]

Same with my parent's place. They had an extension built onto the shallow side which had to be solid floor, and it's slightly cut into the hill.

A wine cellar ideally want's to be below ground level, not just below floor. By going below ground, you get better temperature stabilisation.

However, space below floor but above ground can be useful for other storage if you have enough height.

[Bob Eager]

Or go really mad and have one of these:

[Owain]

[NT]

If you cut one of the joists to get workable access, you could dig out a vee shape without affecting the foundations, cement line it with a drain at the bottom for condensation, and have a fair bit of storage space.

Making a section of the floor liftable and hinged isnt too demanding. Making it invisible would be, though not entirely impossible.

NT

[David WE Roberts]

Thanks for the replies thus far. Nobody has stuck their head up above the parapets and admitted to doing the storage thing yet :-)

[NT]

[e-mail]...

its called a front door

[Dave Liquorice]

Depends what you want to store. All cellars I have been in have been damp so anything that doesn't like damp can't really be stored there. I can't envisage an under floor void being any dryer than a cellar, particulary if there is no DPM between the walls/floor and void.

Parnets 1930's semi had a decent sized void under the floor but the floor of the void was just compacted earth. Plenty of moisture but that's what the couple fo sets of double airbricks front and back where there for...

[Jeremy Nicoll - news posts]

Yes, my ex has done this. Her dad and someone else laid a paving slab floor in the space (which IIRC is about 4'6" deep), laid on sand, possibly with a membrane of some kind under it - can't remember. Then quite a lot of racked shelving was put in. I can't remember if it stands on the slabs or is suspended from the joists above. We also put mains lights down there.

It has stayed dry and made a colossal difference to the amount of storage available. Damp has not been a problem, but if it were one could perhaps run bathroom-type humidity-controlled fans every so often.

Access: a joiner made a strong trapdoor in the sanded-floorboard floor of one of the rooms - a bedroom in fact. There's normally a rug over the trapdoor. Rather than fitting something like a loft ladder, there's a suitably sized step ladder left permanently under the hole. When the joiner was finished we were all a bit unconvinced by the strength of the trapdoor and I got from a local metal fabricator a steel bar of about 1" diameter which we notched into the joists on each side of the hole to provide a solid support for the trapdoor. So when the trapdoor is opened, you lift out the steel bar and descend the stepladder...

[Jeremy Nicoll - news posts]

My previous house (built on the side of a steep hill) had a cellar I could walk around in. I alsways considered extending the house down into it, and the people who bought it from me actually did do that.

Anyway, when I first moved in I thought "a trapdoor would be a good idea". When I explored the cellar, I found there was a good solid stair leading up to what turned out to be a strong trapdoor in the hall, that some idiot had carpeted over. I cut the carpet and edges the inside and outside edges of the hole with the sort of carpet strip you see in doorways. I also fitted a security lock bolt (really one meant for strengthening an outside door's locks), not to prevent thieves, but so that if there were any kids in the house they couldn't open the hole and fall down it.

[David WE Roberts]

I was contemplating some kind of chest arrangement which was isolated from the outside. Sort of like a very large picnic cooler, perhaps - waterproof body and lift off lid. Probably easily constructed from Celotex or similar. I don't think there will be a lot of space underneath ( will find out eventually when we rip floors up ) because Felixstowe is essentially flat and most large voids seem to be associated with sloping sites where one side of the foundations has to be built up. The earlier buildings (1890s I think) are often tall with cellars but by the

1930s most houses were bungalows or two storey 'conventional' build.

I like the idea of a dwarf cellar but I think that this is just a passing dream :-)

Thinking about it, my childhood house was on a slope so there were steps down at the back of the house. The foundations were a wedge, but the base was a flat concrete slab instead of a sloping void.

Our house in Derbyshire was on the side of a steep hill and I always thought that the builders missed a great opportunity by not building in a cellar - rear of the house was cut into the slope about 2/3 up the ground floor at the sunken lawn at the front was at least six feet below floor level so there was certainly scope there.

Wandering back to the subject of underfloor access, as there will be soil pipes running under the house I assume that there will have to be some kind of rodding access and so some kind of access panel somewhere.

Cheers

Dave R