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Anyone here had a loft conversion? Anything you know now, that you wished you knew before starting it ?

64 replies

LovelyYellowLabrador · 19/01/2022 23:06

Looking to get one done this year, but only at the beginning of the process
We can get a builder for the summer

OP posts:
BorisBooster · 20/01/2022 17:39

Air con for summer.

Bloody good heating for winter

sleepymum50 · 20/01/2022 17:54

We had a loft conversion in a typical small terraced House.
Pushed out a little further out the back and got a separate shower room.
Put a bubble skylight in at the top of the stairs. The extra light reached all the way to the first floor.
We had a velux type window in the roof at the front of the house and a Juliet balcony at the back. We installed a large ceiling fan in the room, so on hot days, front and back windows could be opened and a nice thru draught generated.
Insulation regulations do mean lofts can get hot, but this worked well enough for us.

TeenPlusCat · 20/01/2022 18:08

We've had our loft conversion ~10 years now.

  • as many windows as you can afford, it really is worth it
  • position windows so they land either side of the bed, this gives more headroom when getting in and out
  • similarly if you have a bathroom, position windows to give headroom above basin

Ours gets hot in summer but opening windows on 2 sides lets it out quite effectively and 'draws' air up from lower down the house

Maybe our builders were good but it was much cleaner than expected. they did loads through a hole in the roof before breaking through.

it is really hard to imagine where the levels of things will be.

OldestSister · 20/01/2022 18:15

If your bathroom is going to have a sloping roof, with the toilet under the slope, put a velux window over it to give head height for men standing up to wee!

MargaretThursday · 20/01/2022 18:34

Not a loft conversion but:
Get proper velux windows. And a good guarantee for a good number of year.

BlissfullyIgnorant · 20/01/2022 19:08

I haven't, but I have viewed 2 houses that did. Both claimed to have been professionally built, but it looked very much like neither homeowner had sought/followed advice from a structural engineer, so one had a staircase that looked like it was detaching itself from the upper floor and the other had massive cracks showing the walls weren't strong enough to cope with the weight of the building works. Both properties were bungalows, but the loft conversions were both very dodgy.
Do be careful and invest in a good set of professionals. Good luck

icklekid · 20/01/2022 19:31

@funder

Definitely install air con. Loft rooms are unbearable in summer. Look at installing a skylight above the shower cubicle if you have one
Definitely not my experience! We do however have a Juliet balcony on one side and velux on the other so get a good through breeze. We don’t even have a fan up there!
LovelyYellowLabrador · 21/01/2022 23:04

Thanks so much for all the advice
Me and dh going though it all
One major thing stands out
Air con
To most people suggestion this, have you had your loft conversion a long time ago ? As what I’m wondering
Is, is the insulation so much better now as when I asked the builder about air con
He siad you won’t need any as the insulation is so good ??

OP posts:
Svalberg · 22/01/2022 06:29

We had ours done 5 years or so ago. We have plenty of windows on either side. I still wish we had aircon - we have tons of insulation, it's lovely & warm in winter but if I could go back in time, it's the one thing I'd add.

CottonSock · 22/01/2022 06:37

Had ours a year ago, you need air con.

catwomando · 22/01/2022 06:47

Plan out every detail. What furniture and where will it go? Light switches and sockets. Map out the floor plan for real in a space and use bits of cardboard to mimic the bed etc - this helps with working out how much room you will have a d which layout works. I did crazy stuff like miming how I get washed , dressed and made up to see how that flowed in the room, it sounds mad but does help you to design something that works well, rather than just looking pretty.

Yes to lots of light.

Think about windows - we have Velux on one side that can open from the top as well as swivelling in the middle - so much more air in the summer and you don't bash your head on them. Also the finishing of the velux is important - straight or angles recesses? How will the windows get cleaned?

En-suite - we designed ours so it has a separate door off the landing. This way we can let others use the bathroom too without having to come into our room, and we don't get any damp/condensation/poo smells in the bedroom.

Think about keeping a bit of accessible loft space for Xmas decs and suitcases etc.

Get as much ceiling height as you can. Consider getting the steels embedded between joists to get higher ceilings (wish we had known this!).

From the outside think of the symmetry of the windows - line them up with the first floor or it could look weird. Decide on the finish you want - we went s 'proper' wall rather than tiled and it looks so much better.

Size - we asked our builder to max it as much as poss. Our loft is a good metre deeper than our semi neighbours and that can make a huge difference.

Doors - think about pocket doors to save space and give clean lines.

Shelves and storage - as per the furniture plan think of this as part of the design and include in the building spec as it's likely to be cheaper that way.

Hope this helps.

knittingaddict · 22/01/2022 07:08

@LovelyYellowLabrador

Thanks so much for all the advice Me and dh going though it all One major thing stands out Air con To most people suggestion this, have you had your loft conversion a long time ago ? As what I’m wondering Is, is the insulation so much better now as when I asked the builder about air con He siad you won’t need any as the insulation is so good ??
He's talking rubbish.

My daughter did hers a few years ago, but recently enough to be up to modern standards. Good insulation keeps the heat in and it's a real issue in new build flats these days. The heat in the loft rooms was not a figment of our imagination.

knittingaddict · 22/01/2022 07:20

Sorry I should have said that good insulation can keep the heat in. It might work if the conversion is very well designed with the right kind of ventilation and other mitigations. Most builders won't have the expertise to build a well insulated space that won't boil in the summer months.

My daughters second floor new build flat was almost unbearable in the summer months. It's becoming a real problem with rising temperatures.

MrsKDB · 22/01/2022 07:40

Ours doesn’t need aircon (two years old) and it’s an environmental disaster so we wouldn’t have included it

LottaHogs · 22/01/2022 09:04

I wish I’d known:

  • how hot the loft would get in summer
  • how restrictive sloping wall/ceilings are with regards to how we can use the space and create storage.
MarshmallowFondant · 22/01/2022 09:14

The air con thing depends where you live.

Our loft conversion is very well insulated and it is always very warm - we sleep all year round with a thin summer duvet and are never cold. Window open a wee bit all year. But we are in Scotland not far from the coast and even on a really hot summer's day the temperature dips at night enough to make it comfortable. Windows open, window on the other side of the roof open, door open to create movement of air.

The best thing we did was to get wardrobes custom-made with fitted doors at one end of the room.

UnicornPoopsRainbows · 22/01/2022 09:27

I just want to add my 2p. We had an electrician and aircon man round this week to talk about aircon. They said that the models now do cooling AND heating which sounds amazing. We are just having it put into two rooms not a loft but I was very happy learning this

reluctantbrit · 22/01/2022 09:28

We had plans drawn up showing two rooms, DD's room and space for a small office (set up to be converted into an en-suite if we ever felt the need).

Just before they started setting up the new internal wall we went up and were utterly surprised with the lack of space. Going back to the plan we discovered the architect drew the bedroom with just a double bed size, we planned it with space for a super king. No wonder it just looked tiny.
Luckily nothing was not changeable and the next day we sat down with the building company and rearranged the walls. Plenty of space now for DD and DH is ok with a slightly smaller office than originally planned.

Make sure you really check the drawings.

DazzlePaintedBattlePants · 22/01/2022 09:46

Yup, our aircon does heating as well as cooling.

mdh2020 · 22/01/2022 09:49

A loft conversion is cold in winter and hot in summer.
Think about whether you want one big room or two smaller rooms. We went for the latter and our daughter has a bedroom and a lounge. We also got a small box room which has been converted into an office for her.
The stairs up to the loft tend to be steeper than your other staircase.
Lastly, the mess when they finally break through is worse than you could imagine.

Diditopknot · 22/01/2022 09:56

Something we didn’t consider was we had our chimney checked on the roof as it looked “crumbly”.
The guy came down and showed us pictures of the chimney and pictures of the loft extension dormer which was completely stripped to bare wood which was wet and sagging. He saw it while up there and kindly pointed out the mess of it to us.
Seagulls and weather had ripped off all the covering so at any moment, that dormer was about to collapse in on ds in his bed!
It’s been 15 years since we had ours done.
So we have had the dormer all redone to be sealed and safe.
Should be checked every 5 years and may need re covering every 10-15 years apparently.

Ours isnt fancy like pp, it created a bigger bedroom as the box room in our little semi was just inadequate for our growing son.
Purely practical living.

Doomscrolling · 22/01/2022 10:06

As long as you have windows you can open on both sides to get a draught through, you don’t need aircon in my experience. I crack both windows open and it cools down nicely.

Perhaps in the south it’s significantly warmer.

Definitely get a window over the staircase, it makes a massive difference to the light.
Sacrificing a 50cm of bedroom width for a larger bathroom was great - it feels more luxurious to have a decent sized bathroom than a “just about fits” one.

If installing a shower, insist the controls to turn it off and on are off to the side so you can turn it on without that quick lurch back to avoid the initial blast of cold water. 15cm more of pipe and very easily done at installation stage.

clopper · 22/01/2022 10:08

Build cupboards under the eaves. Have plenty of plug sockets in different areas.

Diditopknot · 22/01/2022 10:23

Fully opening windows for fire escape too. Big enough for a person to climb out of.

MrsKDB · 22/01/2022 10:30

Agree with plan plan plan. DH used excel to make a scale plan then we worked out exactly where stud walls / doors / furniture would go, right down to plug sockets and light switches. Have a plan for those too - what you want to be able to turn on and off and from where

Order as much as possible in advance. Make a list of everything you need.

Ours has a huge pitch - take your pitch into account when planning wardrobes etc.

Keep under eaves storage but pare right back on what you need to store. Our conversion forced a huge and long overdue declutter.