"David WE Roberts" wrote:

Again, if there is a significant underfloor void, has anyone used this for
storage? Trap door over a mini wine cellar (one bottle deep, perhaps)
sounds possible.

Yes, my ex has done this. Her dad and someone else laid a paving slab floor
in the space (which IIRC is about 4'6" deep), laid on sand, possibly with a
membrane of some kind under it - can't remember. Then quite a lot of racked
shelving was put in. I can't remember if it stands on the slabs or is
suspended from the joists above. We also put mains lights down there.

It has stayed dry and made a colossal difference to the amount of storage
available. Damp has not been a problem, but if it were one could perhaps
run bathroom-type humidity-controlled fans every so often.

Access: a joiner made a strong trapdoor in the sanded-floorboard floor of
one of the rooms - a bedroom in fact. There's normally a rug over the
trapdoor. Rather than fitting something like a loft ladder, there's a
suitably sized step ladder left permanently under the hole. When the joiner
was finished we were all a bit unconvinced by the strength of the trapdoor
and I got from a local metal fabricator a steel bar of about 1" diameter
which we notched into the joists on each side of the hole to provide a solid
support for the trapdoor. So when the trapdoor is opened, you lift out the
steel bar and descend the stepladder...


--
Jeremy C B Nicoll - my opinions are my own.

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