'Cowboy' Loft Conversions

[martinlewis33]

Hi poeple

Can anyone help me with either knowledge or reference points?

I have a short presentation to construct on amateur loft conversions and their defects. I'm asked to expalain provisions for fire escape, fire resistance and insufficient floor strength.

The research into fire escape and resistance are going well but I'm struggling to find much on insufficient floor strength.

Can anyone help? All advice would be appreciated.

Thank you

 

[Bowness72]

I have heard of people installing additional inadequate joists spanning across the existing inadequate joists and suggesting that doing this strengthens the joists, which it doesn't and actually applies more weight therefore is actually worse.

 

[martinlewis33]

Certainly will look into that aspect.

Anyone else that can help?

 

[big-all]

dont forget to mention removing the silly bits of wood everywhere going at all sorts of angles blocking up the space

and how handy it is when you remove a section of joist to make the trap door bigger but dont bother to add trimmers

 

[markie]

So you know about the escape window on a velux coversion should be no more than 1700 from the gutter/first tile/slate, and the no less than 600 from the floor to the bottom of the velux.

And the ceiling below has to be 1/2 fire protection, which could be plaster board ( 1/2" ) or over boarded with 3/8 board ( well up this way it's allowed ) or you have to use chicken wire on exsisting ceiling joists and form a basket then put RW 33 I think it's called now, used to be call R W 2.

Joist have to be a certain size, depending the span, ie you can't use a joist lets say 5x2 for a 3m span. And if you need to drill a hole into the joist you have to drill in the centre of it, not to one edge ( top/bottom )

There's loads more imfo but been drinking but there's a lot of good people on here will add more stuff for you.

 

[salem2000]

So you know about the escape window on a velux coversion should be no more than 1700 from the gutter/first tile/slate

Just for info.....

When we had our loft converted (Bungalow) we had problems with these distances. If we conformed to either one of the distance regulations for fire egress roof windows, we were in breach of one or the other. When we contacted the Building Regs Officer he advised us that the distance of 1700 from the first tile is NOT a calculating factor when fitting a fire egress roof window in a bungalow. However the sill hight of 600 min & 1100 max, must apply.