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Steve Steve is offline
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Default How much to strengthen loft floor, but not full conversion?

On 2007-05-18 03:18:33 +0100, John Rumm said:

Steve wrote:

I'd love to get my loft converted into a habitable room, but have been
told by friends that it'd cost from £8k-£12k to get done properly, which


Depends on what sort of conversion you are attempting to do. Something
that you DIY, and keeps within the bounds of the roof (i.e. no changes
to the roof like additions of dormers), could be cheaper to do £4 - £5k
perhaps.


Okay, well I definitely need to get someone in then to give me some prices.


However, I was wondering, how much do you think it'd cost to just get
the loft floor strengthened, as if it were getting converted, but
nothing else?


How does your loft compare to mine:

http://www.internode.co.uk/loft/floor.htm


Thanks for the link. Without going and taking a photo of my loft to
compare, it does look pretty similar. Your house (the front of it)
also looks very similar to the houses in the adcajcent streets to mine,
so although my house is a smaller 3 bed semi, I'd imaging that it'd be
pretty similar in the loft anyway if I hadn't have seen your loft
pictures.


If you need to get an engineer to design it, then allow say £300 -
£500. The steel, wood, and fixings, plus floor boarding probably cost
about £1200. Total time to do the floor would be about 14 man days. So
if you are paying a builder, then anything from £2.5k and up for the
labour.
Depending on the circumstances you may also need scaffolding to get the
new joists etc into the loft.


I assume that these figures are for the full conversion as they come to
around £4,200. How would you say the materials for just stranghtening
the floor came to, and how many days labour would you estimate that
took?



I could then use it for storage (albeit, with a stronger floor for
peace of mind), but be able to do work on it bit by bit over the next
few years, doing one step of the conversion at a time (DIY where
possible, and getting professionals in where necessary).


While it is just for storage you could probably save the costs of a
submission to building control. Obviously once you start turning the
floor into a conversion proper then they need to be involved.


Yes. By the way, since my post, I read that you no longer (or will no
longer) need to get planning permission for loft conversions, though
I'm sure there are certain limits/rules you still have to fit in with.

Thanks,

Steve