Lowering a ceiling by how much?

[Nomadic78]

Hi all,

Hope you are well.

I want to convert my loft, but believe I had to lower the ceiling on the first floor. Measurements are as follows:

Loft: I measure 166cm between the middle floor beam (which lies on top
of the floor beams that run from front to back) and the top roof beam.
And about 178cm between the middle floor beam and the top of the
inside roof itself.

The first floor is 255CM. How much would I need the ceiling lowered by, would 25CM be enough?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Tigercubrider]

Normally a loft conversion uses steels inserted on top of the wall plate doesn't. It?

 

[oldbutnotdead]

You planning on habitable room(s) up there? 2000 to ceiling will feel cramped. Remember you'll lose some of that headroom to insulation and boards and nonsense. Your first floor headroom isn't great at 2550, dropping it to 2300 will also feel cramped. If you're planning to do it cos you desperately need another room and it is your only option then fine, but it'll be a dear do with not a lot in return.

 

[Ian H]

Is it a terrace,semi or detached?

If you do a drawing and work out how wide you want the room you can then work out what size floor joists you will need.

Ours was medium sized room so the new floor joists spanned about 3mtrs so we 8x2. The old ones we 3x2 so we had to go down 15cm just so the new would be level with the old. If you wanted a 3mtr wife room you might be able to use thinner floor joists to give more head height.

I came down about 25cm and our upstairs ceilings are now 230cm, I don’t feel cramped but out loft was 2.7mtrs from original floor to top of roof and now with all the insulation and plasterboard it’s about 2.3mtrs.

 

[Nomadic78]

Thank you all, think we are not going to proceed and do a reconfiguration instead.

 

[Nomadic78]

I just found this article: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/feb/17/open-house-two-architects-imagination-run-wild

Seems like they lowered the first floor ceiling as well as the floor above.