loft conversion advice/recommendations?

[zero]

Hi, thanks for your helpful responses to my last question, I thought I'd try again with another one!

We're planning a loft conversion above our flat (circa 1850), we've had one or two quotes and it seems that it should be easy to convert. However, I've heard so many horror stories and it is really difficult to work out which builders are reputable and which aren't - does anyone have any recommendations (we're in North London)? Also, are there any issues we need to watch out for, given that this is a fairly old building and we want to try to preserve its character? I vaguely recall hearing that putting in steel joists was a bad idea on an old property, but not sure if that's true (or if so, why)...every loft conversion company seems to use these.

Thanks in advance for any input on the above.

 

[thiambal]

Not sure about the steel joists - I suppose old building and their materials move and steel is rather rigid.

As for things to look out for - the big problem when we looked at this was that in order for a new staircase to meet modern building regs the stairs have to be much wider that was standard in old buildings - we were told 950mm whereas our current stairs are around 700mm. This made it impossible to site a new flight of stairs over the old ones.

A solution sometimes suggested is to have stairs that do not meet building regs - and when you come to sell the house you cannot sell on the basis of the loft room being an inhabitable part of the house - i.e. you cannot add a bedroom for the one in the loft. Beware of this!!! - a house a few doors down from us tried this trick and lost their sale twice because of this problem.

Most builders we had look at our house said we would need new joists to support a room in the loft - this meant taking down ceilings and enormous extra expense - if this has not been recommended - is it because your joists are strong enough or because the builders are cowboys?

Then you need to think about space - are you going to need to fit a Dorma window to incorporate the staircase or to give sufficent head room for building regs in the loft. There is a danger of abadly designed (or some may say any) Dorma ruining the look of your house.

Finally, weigh up the expense and ask whether you are going to end up with a new room with a large floor plan but with very little usable space due to the pitch of the roof - would it be cheaper and more sypathetic to the property just to move to a bigger house.

Sorry to put a downer on it - I just know when we looked at it - all these issues came up and we decided against it.

 

[Johneds]

That's a curious one. To the best of my knowledge there is no regulation at all as to the width of stairs. Plenty of regulation as to the pitch, going, rise and width of openings. But non that govern width.