How can you tell if your house is suitable for a loft conversion?

[Binkey]

I haven't ever been up in the loft.....I hate them and am quite scared of them

Would I need to get a builder in to look at it? The roof pitch is quite shallow.

You need enough headroom to make it worthwhile, obviously. And the insulation requirements these days eat into that headroom quite quickly. Also if your roof is built with trusses (as a lot of modern houses are) then many of the supports would need to be removed, requiring structural strengthening by other means and generally adding a lot of cost. Older roofs with simpler construction (joists and rafters) are usually easier to convert. Basically if you can stand up and walk around in your loft without having to climb over/around lots of timbers then you are probably OK.

There's not much you can learn without going up there though

You might need to change the rafters to something thicker for the floor too - which again removes potential headroom (although under the floor instead of insulation overhead)

Our house is a late 70's little terrace. I think I am probably being unrealistic in thinking one would fit in.....I just looked on google maps and not a single house in our estate has a velux window or dorma.....I'm guessing that's because its not possible.

I will eventually venture up there.....I just hate lofts. I went in to my friends a while back and there was a little desk and table in the corner and it really freaked me out. I daren't look in mine in case there is something living up there!

You need to have at least 2.4m at the apex of the roof to allow 2m (building regs minimum) head room once the steels etc have gone in. If you can't achieve that, then it's going to be a bit of a no-go unless you are prepared to lower all the ceiling in the storey below.

Binkey - if it's 70s then it will definitely have trussed rafters. The roof will need to be supported by steels - but as you'd need the same steels to strengthen the floor to meet building regs it doesn't make much difference. Only thing to be careful with is that you use a builder who is experienced in this type of conversion as it's slightly more complicated.

As pp has mentioned you need a minimum of 2.4m from the underside of the ceiling joist to the apex. Only way round this is if you can lower the ceiling on the floor below.

I wouldn't let the fact that none of your neighbours have done it put you off. We were the first on our (large, 100+ houses) estate to have a proper loft conversion done two years ago. And this is in London where almost all the Victorian and Edwardian houses have been loft converted!

Thanks Guinevere that certainly gives me something to think about. We are in such a lovely area. I couldn't ever imagine moving. The house will defiantly be too small for us in a year or two but we could extend the living space down stairs and a loft conversion in the room would give us the number of bedrooms we need. This may be totally out of our price range so I might have my head in the clouds. Just like to think ahead.

I would get in touch with a loft company - we did, they came round to tell us whether it was viable. In our case, we could happily wander around up there but we were about 25cm short of the required height. We'd have needed to lower the ceilings. We would also have needed a dormer on the side for the stairs and a dormer at the back to increase the size (wanted bedroom & small ensuite). We've therefore done down the extension route instead, but the loft company were really helpful.