Boarding a loft

[Rutter]

Not sure if there will be any interest in this or not but we bought a new build house at the tail end of last year and our garage is currently packed full of boxes that were previously in the loft at the old house so I decided to bite the bullet and board the new loft despite being told not to by the builders.

I'd previously put an aerial up there for freeview but other than that it was largely empty as shown in the blurry picture.



As the insulation was above the joists and I didn't want to lose the benefit of this I looked into loft legs and similar solutions, eventually settling on the Loftzone system as this looks sturdy enough for my ample frame. So off I went to Bunnings to load up on loft boards etc. Obligatory car picture, seems I may need a bigger one...



I then got to work fitting the Tri supports and cross members before the metal beams and then the boards on top.





Then I chopped down some of the boards as I was using one full board and then taking about 200mm off the others to fit.



Making progress, pretty quick once everything is ready.



I still need to tidy up the hatch area and permanently mount the ladder.



Quite a quick and easy system to use if a little expensive, I was mostly delayed by my 14 month old son needing to sleep, firing in screws with an impact driver wasn't good for his nap schedule. Work has now stalled as its approaching the surface temperature of the sun in the loft currently, but i'll update this if people are interested once its complete.

[Rutter]

joestifff said:

Were the legs expensive? I didn't want to lose insulation either so got some lengths of 6x2 and placed them at 90 degrees to the beams already there.

I also put some wood across the "V" bits that stick up to the roof, and then used boards across there like a shelf.

The Loftzone system worked out at about £300 for the ~15m2 of loft i've boarded, so not cheap but a very quick simple and strong way of doing it whilst preserving the insulation and the airgap above it. Boards were extra at around £7 for 3 from bunnings, similar at wickes.

alorotom said:

Were looking at new builds now and have been told the same by the builder.

Didn’t know you could get these legs/stilts and it looks good!

I believe that most new build lofts are rated for 25kg per sq meter and are only really designed to hold up the roof and the ceiling below. but I clearly know better and wanted to use it for storage!

[Rutter]

Jobbo said:

I've been pondering something like this - the previous owner of our house put a similar quantity of insulation up there which is great, very effective over winter. But how do you finish the area around the loft hatch?

I've bought some timber to tidy up the loft hatch area, i'll try and update the thread once its done, same with the light fittings.