Do I Need To Reinforce My Loft Floor

Floor joists can be found under the house for example in the crawl space.

Do i need to reinforce my loft floor.

As always don t mess with electrics if you re not competent but even part k allows you to do a fair bit yourself. Joists you may have thought adequate for your attic floor may not come close to being strong enough. I ve not gone down the regulations route as it s not going to be used as a bedroom. Furthermore squashing insulation down to fit joist height is a bad idea as this halves it s effectiveness doubling your heat loss.

Floor raising strengthening if you are thinking of using your loft for heavy items then it may be the case that your floor will need reinforcing or strengthening. You may need to reinforce your floor joists if you have saggy floors in your house. The new floor joists of your loft conversion will need to offer at least 30 minutes worth of fire protection which could mean replastering the ceilings in those first floor rooms below. The loft room will also have to be separated by a fire door either at the top or bottom of the new stairs.

Either way they are put in to lend support to weakening walls and floors. They can even be found in the basements of homes. You can still board directly on to the joists if you want but it is worth noting that this would not pass a building control inspection because you wouldn t have the full 270mm depth of insulation required by regulations. Ive just strengthened my loft floor.

The best solution is to build a raised loft floor above the insulation details of which are shown below. While not the ultimate voice in spans these calculators do provide a reality check. If you re not confident get an electrician to do the electrics. This is custom heading element.