Shelving in attic - what's safe?

[sunnydaynoworking]

Hi, have never had an attic before and excited about bringing some order to it! It is floored but with chipboard, so it's for storage rather than as a room. There are two gable ends and I'd like to store books and files at one end. With the sloping roof it's a bit awkward, but I could fit a 2x4 kallax unit (lying down) and another of the 2x2 ones on top. Or is that likely to be too heavy? I'm not sure to what extent I can treat it as a room, iyswim. Another option could be to hang shelves off the walls, which are just the exposed brickwork. Pleased to have any ideas!

The brick walls will be stronger, the rest of the loft is only designed for the weight of the tiles etc, some snow, and light storage. Having said that if it's an old roof built from bits of wood rather than a new trussed one it's probably got a margin of safety.

Thank you. The house is from the 60s, ex LA, so neither old nor new! Sorry to be dense but do you mean the floor of the attic is only designed for light storage? I wish I could remember now the weight that the installers claimed it would hold, it sounded a lot but then I’ve never actually weighed my books!

True well if you want to be precise, the floor is only designed for light storage, the rafters are not designed for any extra weight at all, and the brick walls will be very strong regardless.

Thank you for the advice! I think rather than trying to have one place full of books I'll look more into spreading them around the edges and over walls, if I can work out where the supporting wall is! And keep an eye out for cracks in the ceiling
They're not even my bloody books
In fact I have a photo somewhere - this is from before I start to sort it out, please note!

Good idea spreading them out close to the edges.

How precious are the books and files? I’ve lost some to damp after storing in lofts. My solution was to store in boxes with silica sachets, but this doesn’t solve your weight conundrum.