I want to put in a staircase in our two storey house up into the loft space, and I realise I'm going to need permissions and building warrant, but regulations aside, I can't seem to get my head around how to support the ceiling (loft floor) once I cut away the joists to get access for the stair.
The stair is going to have to be "L-shaped" with a landing three or four steps down from the top, but it means cutting away the supported ends of about 8 joists (see incredibly poor drawing below). - The stair needs to run "along" the supporting wall.
If the stairs were a straight run, then I could simply put an 8x2 joist across the cut ends of the joists (along the side of the stairs), supported by a granite wall at one end, and a post at the other (which would in turn rest on a supporting ground floor wallhead - that first floor wall is not suitable for load bearing). My problem is that, having an "L" shaped stair means that the "end beam" would have to stop short of the granite wall, with nothing to support it.
The only thing I can think of would be to put a heavy timber "diagonal", bolted to the supporting wall, beneath the landing, somthing like the diagonal on a timber gate, passing the load from the flor above onto the supporting wall 3 ft away! Only thing is that I don't recall seeing many diagonal timbers in housebuilding, so I'm guessing there's likely a better way.
Any suggestions welcome.
kind regards,
Guy[/i]
The stair is going to have to be "L-shaped" with a landing three or four steps down from the top, but it means cutting away the supported ends of about 8 joists (see incredibly poor drawing below). - The stair needs to run "along" the supporting wall.
If the stairs were a straight run, then I could simply put an 8x2 joist across the cut ends of the joists (along the side of the stairs), supported by a granite wall at one end, and a post at the other (which would in turn rest on a supporting ground floor wallhead - that first floor wall is not suitable for load bearing). My problem is that, having an "L" shaped stair means that the "end beam" would have to stop short of the granite wall, with nothing to support it.
The only thing I can think of would be to put a heavy timber "diagonal", bolted to the supporting wall, beneath the landing, somthing like the diagonal on a timber gate, passing the load from the flor above onto the supporting wall 3 ft away! Only thing is that I don't recall seeing many diagonal timbers in housebuilding, so I'm guessing there's likely a better way.
Any suggestions welcome.
kind regards,
Guy[/i]