In message ,
newshound writes
On 11/07/2015 18:34, harry wrote:
On Friday, 10 July 2015 20:02:55 UTC+1, Murmansk wrote:
A friend of mine has a flat in the top floor of a large Victorian
house. There's a big loft above the flat that's accessed by a loft
hatch in the hall, which is in the centre of the flat and under the
point where the roof it at its maximum height.


The ceiling is unlikely to be strong enough to become a floor
(depending if there are any partition walls beneath to support it)
One way to strengthen it up is to put in hangers from the purlins to
an additional "cross rafters" secured to the existing "ceiling joists.".

If it has got a loft hatch (and especially if there was once a cold
water tank in there)

Our cold water tanks are on a platform supported between the chimney
stack and the outer wall of the house. Just as well there is about 1000L
up there.

it's reasonable to assume that the joists will take the weight of a
single person. If it's really going to be a walk in wardrobe, not a
store for heavy stuff, I don't think you are likely to have a problem
with loading. Timber was cheap in Victorian times and I would expect
the ceiling joists to be quite meaty.

Nothing particularly meaty about our ceiling joists - sure they support
the weight of a person - but that's not saying much..

That's not to say it is not worth thinking about whether there are
supporting walls etc because the ceiling may develop cracks if there
are excessive deflections under load.


Ours all have cracks (and/or Artex ) and tend to sag bit etc. - just
becuase they have been up ther for a long time I think

--
Chris French