"Mike Dodd" wrote in message
...
Owain wrote:
cs wrote:

A couple of small questions regarding loft ladders. I need to install
one as the only access I have today to my loft is via a small hatch and
ladders put on top of our granite kitchen worktop, hardly safe nor
something that pleases the wife...


Before you spend loadsamoney on a loft ladder you might consider whether
it would be possible to make more sense to make a larger hatch elsewhere.

Owain


...and then install a loft ladder in that hatch.


Ok, I'm living in a shoe-box new-build home, with buggerall storage, so
the loft space appealed to me for storing empty boxes and whatnot*

I can understand the what not but why empty boxes??? Our whatnots include a
dolls house, stores of leather and fabric, tents and camping equipment, some
weird historical equipment (used sometimes), spinning wheel, slabs of
beeswax, honey jars, moulds, ceramics and other things made by student
children in the past which they'll eventually want (I hope), ... and
probably all the things we can never find until we think of looking in the
loft ...

And the new plumbing and a futon ... sigh

Bought a cheap set of alu ladders - something around the £30-40 mark, I
think (around 6 years ago, now) and installed these into the hatch. Hatch
had to be modified, of course, to remove the lip that supported the hatch
lid and to replace with a loft hatch that was hinged, new surround around
that, paint and make-good. All in all, a good afternoons work.

I'd forgotten about the hatch modification. We had to enlarge ours to allow
some of the large items through.

Now, I'm 6ft (give or take) and weigh in at a portly 15 stone (give or
take!) and the ladders cope admirabley with me carting stuff in and out of
the attic at regular (see size of house) intervals.

I can heartily recommend a set of loft ladders... and I have no complaint
about the el-cheapo Alu set that I bought (from Wickes, if memory serves
me correctly)

Sound advice.

Mary