Loft conversion - what you wish you’d thought of?

[Filament]

We’re in a mid terrace house and just planning on having a loft conversion done.
Standard stuff with dormer at the back and bedroom & ensuite inside

Current plan is standard Juliet balcony at rear, eaves storage at front, small toilet and shower room to one side

If you’ve had a similar conversion done, is there anything that you wish you had thought about at the time or any tweaks you either did that work well, or that you wish you had done?

Any thoughts very welcome

 

[peter-harrison]

Do your utmost to avoid having a macerator in the shower room. They are the pits. We had one, and eventually had to put in conventional drainage at great cost and much less neatly than it could have been.

 

[Jacob]

Max insulation in roof and also the floor - keep rest of house warm if attic not in use.

 

[Fitzroy]

Well detailed insulation, installed correctly.

 

[Lard]

+1 for as much insulation as you can fit/afford.

we only have 100mm rafters and so I used 50mm celotex with 25mm space each side then added 19 layer multi foil to the rafter faces.....made an immediate difference (obvious I know) and I am very happy with it as its made fantastic use of a completely unused roof space and what we had, structurally, and could afford at the time.

however, I do wish I could have added more insulation but that would have meant additional structural work and losing height/width which I did not want to trade off on.

Also ensure that you properly tape all insulation joints and ASSUME that any cutting to insulation boards will not be exact, even though you think they're snug, so consider using beads of low expansion foam.

 

[Spectric]

There are far to many houses where the loft is not ultilised and one of the reasons is the horrid finks truss, why don't builders adopt room in roof trusses to give new owners more storage ?

 

[Lard]

There are far to many houses where the loft is not ultilised and one of the reasons is the horrid finks truss, why don't builders adopt room in roof trusses to give new owners more storage ?

Totally agree but, in my experience, this would mean more cost because of having to re-design to allow increased/standing heights in lofts = either steeper pitches (=more roof coverings) or bigger floor plans to allow for increased house widths (aesthetics and planning etc).

To me it's just basic forethought but to the house builders it's about their bottom-line unfortunately.

Let's hope our new Labour 'saviours' save us with their new planning/house building aims.

 

[HOJ]

There are far to many houses where the loft is not ultilised and one of the reasons is the horrid finks truss, why don't builders adopt room in roof trusses to give new owners more storage ?

Interestingly, the post I made the other week about cutting on a roof was designed to give floor space and potential rooms in the roof.

When it first came up thoughts were to go for offsite manufactured roof trusses but they couldn't design it structurally, without compromises, their cost was £5.5K to just supply, I designed a cut roof and had an SE check out the details which cost £500.00, then ordered the timber, cost £2K, then a week to cut it and shut it, cost £2k, so the roof we made, cost less than buying one in, we would also have needed to hire a crane + it still needed fitting.

So It is possible for some, but not all, to be done more effectively on site and give a greater value.

 

[Spectric]

So It is possible for some, but not all, to be done more effectively on site and give a greater value.

But your method required skill which is in short supply on building sites where they just throw the trusses on and slap a roof on top whilst often mishandling the trusses and putting excess stress on the nail plates. Like everything they only went down the truss route to cut cost, save time and reduce the skill levels.

 

[highwood122]

There are far to many houses where the loft is not ultilised and one of the reasons is the horrid finks truss, why don't builders adopt room in roof trusses to give new owners more storage ?

they build as cheaply as the can,with no thought as to anything else