Loft Conversions, RSJ or Timber?

Hi All. Looking to do a loft conversion soon and have a couple of questions i'd be grateful if I can get some help on. I'm looking to do most of the work myself due to costs.

Do I have to use RSJ's to support the new floor? The reason I ask is front wall to back wall is 7 meters. There are no load bearing walls in between.

Party wall to party wall is 5.5 meters. The party wall is single brick (very strong bricks that are hard to drill into) I spoke to a builder who says I can use 2x9 or 3 x 9 timbers to span the distance between party walls and fit these to the walls using steel brackets, spaced about 400mm apart across the length of the floor.

I'm looking to get an architect in soon but want to gain as much knowledge as I can before I do this so that I can discuss different options with him.

any advice will be much appreciated.

7 metres (circa 23 feet) is quite a large span and would require something like a 12 x 2in timber unless there was an intermediate support, such as a wall.

JobAndKnock said:

7 metres (circa 23 feet) is quite a large span and would require something like a 12 x 2in timber unless there was an intermediate support, such as a wall.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply. The builder i had in said we could fit joists between party walls instead using joist hangers chipped into the mortar of the bricks as we could get away with timbers. Is this not recommended under building regs?

If the builder said you need 2x9 or 3x9 to span 5.5m, you need to speak to another builder!





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Duplicate thread closed by request of OP.
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