Loft floor reinforcing

[hairyfingers]

Hi!

here is my current loft layout. It is pretty close to scale. the legend gives some further info.

Untitled

• hairyfingers
• 16 Oct 2010
• 3

the joists are currently 3" x 2". I want to use the space to house about 100 50cm cubed boxes full of eduaction papers.

I'm pretty certain the current floor will not be strong enough.

The black lines of the diagram represent walls - all of which go right through the house apart from the one to the left of the pink loft hatch. However this wall is built on a lintel supported on the gable end wall and another lintel running adjacent along the first floor ceiling (hard to describe or mark on the diagram) basically i think all the walls are good to take load.

What I want to do is remove the bearing and posts connected to the apex in the the centre so that a more open space is created. then double up or even triple up the existing joists with more C16 3" x 2"'s.

I could put big fat joists in but that would mean taking out all the bearings in order to fit them in so don't really want to do that.

any joists that do not rest on a wall in their run would be cross supported to doubled up parallel joists - a bit like the loft hatch only I wouldn't cut a hole in the roof.

Is this going to be strong enough for what I want?

any other thoughts I need to consider?

thanks

 

[joe-90]

Why do you need to remove stuff if you are only keeping a few boxes up there?

You can't just go around creating habitable space without permissions - regardless of what you say on an internet forum. One day you'll want to sell your house so I suggest you do it right - or don't do it at all.

 

[hairyfingers]

Well it depends on what you mean by habitable - if you mean the ability to walk around in a loft without hindrance, then yes its habitable - as that's all I want to do - and I will need to access the boxes often (prob once a week) so I will be walking around on the floor a bit.

so can i do what I'm saying?

I suppose it's not a big hassle to have the centre bearing left in, so even if I leave the centre bearing will the floor be strong enough? - I don't think it will be - therefore back to my original quest..... will the addition of further 3 x 2's add sufficient strength.

thanks