Steve wrote:

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?

That *was* the figure for just doing the floor. It took two of us about
6 days elapsed for the main floor structure, and then I was allowing
another couple of days for boarding it out and other bits that need
doing. If you are going on to fully convert it would also pay you to lay
in pipework and wiring at the same time to save making the job harder
later.

With the simplest loft conversions, the floor is the biggest job. Roof
windows can be installed from inside the loft. Those will be the next
most expensive bits (probably £500 for a couple of largish ones). Next
comes insulation and boarding for the underside of the rafters. If you
produce your own drawings and structural calcs then you could save the
engineers fee. If you want something more elaborate with changes to the
roof structure and dormers etc then you will spend significantly more on
the later stages after the floor is done.

If you ignore labour, the the costs of my full conversion cam to about
£2.2K in fees (arechitect, building control, skips, scaffolding, and
having the flat roof felted (the bit I did not DIY). Materials were
£10.5K (that included all fittings and fixtures, carpets, paint etc).

To have a builder produce something similar I would expect to pay £35K ish.

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.

In general you never did need planning permission, unless you were in a
conservation area / listed building, or you wanted to alter the front
aspect of the roof.

However the work must comply with building regulations (for obvious
reasons, they stop you building a death trap) and it must be supervised
and ultimately signed off by building control. Note that Building
regulations and building control are not related to or in anyway the
same thing as planning permission and planners.

Without a completion certificate you may at best have difficulty selling
the place in future, at worst you could be required to take down the
work if it is not to a suitable standard.

(this is covered under the Planning and Building Regulations" section on
my main page)


--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/