Building advice needed. Loft flooring

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jay1983

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Hope someone here has knowledge of this.

My house is non-standard construction (coralite) and on inspection of the loft it seems there are no joists. It's just a solid concrete floor. The insulation is just lay on top. I
Don't know the depth of the concrete yet either.

How would I go about raising the floor to retain the insulation? Or would it be ok to remove the insulation and use the loft as it is for storage?
In the future would it be strong enough to use as a spare room?
 
or even a structural engineer.

but if you stand in the middle and jump up and down you can generally tell if you are wasting your time getting professional advice.
 
Hope someone here has knowledge of this.

My house is non-standard construction (coralite) and on inspection of the loft it seems there are no joists. It's just a solid concrete floor. The insulation is just lay on top. I
Don't know the depth of the concrete yet either.

How would I go about raising the floor to retain the insulation? Or would it be ok to remove the insulation and use the loft as it is for storage?
In the future would it be strong enough to use as a spare room?

You should be able to work out the depth of the concrete from the ceiling depth near the loft hatch.

To raise the floor just batten it out with wood, then lay the boards.
 
Have a chat with your local Building Control officer for the required advice, particularly about the spare room conversion, where you'll need to meet certain regs.
 
or even a structural engineer.

but if you stand in the middle and jump up and down you can generally tell if you are wasting your time getting professional advice.

This I think. A building surveyor may be able to do the sums also. I personally would not have a clue.:dk:
 
Thanks for the advice guys. I've just realised as well that the load bearing wall travels the whole LENGH of the loft. I think your onto something tho dieselman. If I take the wooden trim from around the loft hatch ( which will need to be ditched as its useless ) I can then see how thick the floor is and if there are any obvious signs of steel reinforcement.
 
No need to remove the trim, just measure the frame depth, then measure the lost depth of concrete.

It seems strange to have a concrete ceiling if it wasn't designed to be fully load bearing...why bother?

Why not ask the builder for specs?
 
Are all the floor structues slabs? Sounds like the house is of a cross beam concrete construction, and if it was built in the 50's you would expect the reinforced slab to be about 250-300mm thick.

If you want to insulate properly and make the loft habitable I would recommend a thermal board whithe a Screed Replacemnt Board on top, you can then put whatever flooring you want over this. The typical build up would be 40-50mm, and you can have wet or dry underfloor heating integrated into the thermal board if you want too.
 
Last edited:
R120 said:
Are all the floor structues slabs? Sounds like the house is of a cross beam concrete construction, and if it was built in the 50's you would expect the reinforced slab to be about 250-300mm thick.

It is concrete 50's construction. They were built after the war as there was a need for housing but a lack of bricks.
 

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