Attic storage / boarded out / illegal attic room

[Flickoffboris]

Hi, we need a new roof so I'm considering throwing my lot in and putting in a few velux windows, boarding it out to make a nice clean space for storage, and maybe even carving out an illegal office nook.
Has anyone done similar, what was the rough cost, and pros / cons I should be aware of? Thanks in advance

Why not covert it into a bedroom legally? Dormer extension it's about 50k I think, will it add that to the value of your house?

Its not illegal to have an attic room, you just cant call it a bedroom.

We re-roofed the back of our house and put 2 Velux's in. Building control took a lot of convincing that we were not doing a loft conversion, we just wanted natural light up there. When we got the sign-off certificate, it had a yellow post-it note stuck to it saying that if we ever proceeded to a full loft conversion, we must inform them as we would owe them more money!

I have one. It's not illegal but it's not a bedroom

Absolutely no problem at all doing it unofficially (assuming it's safe of course) although if you decide to sell it will be nothing more than a loft space unless you get formal permission.

@rollercoaster1920 I don't want to lose the box room to have a staircase put in, nor do I wash to spend 50k.
@rslsys what do you use the space for?
OK illegal is the wrong term, unofficial attic room I guess. We certainly wouldn't be going for regs, we don't actually need a bedroom anyway, just some really decent storage and possibly a seat / desk under the velux if headroom allows.

We just used it as we did before, but with daylight! If you imagine the area split into 3 bays with the loft hatch in the middle bay. The middle bay is boarded and normally stores the Xmas decs and all the stuff the kids left when they left home. The left-hand bay is empty (apart from loft insulation). The righthand bay has the central heating header tank and the power shower header tank + loft insulation.
A pre-Xmas purge has re-united the kids with a lot of their crap, this will continue in the new year. Don't know what the final intentions are for the loft yet, DW has yet to tell me!

My Dad boarded out his loft over twenty years ago and put in a window, lights, etc. It was my bedroom for a few years. Great use of space.

If he was to sell it would be advertised as storage. House opposite us sold a few years back, they have a loft conversion and it wasn't even mentioned in the advert or floor plan

If we ever needed extra space it would be the first thing we'd do

I like the idea. You can turn an average loft into a nice enough place to work in/play in/ maybe even occasionally sleep in for seemingly 1/10th the cost of a full above board loft conversion with stairs, regulation insulation, separate joists etc.

The most important part of a loft conversion is replacing the original, small joists with ones that make the loft structurally capable of holding the weight of a room. If you’re planning to use it as an office room, you’ll need to ensure that this won’t compromise the existing joists which weren’t designed to bear weight - a structural engineer would be needed. Velux windows may require planning permission depending on their aspect, so you’d need to check that with your local authority.

We’re mid-way through boarding and insulating our loft purely for storage, although have had some of the joists strengthened as we want to be able to actually comfortable walk around up there to access things. We’ll probably be looking at about £4K all in including one small Velux window and panelling the pitches.

We have one. It was already carpeted with sockets and Velux window etc when we moved in. But it has a ladder not stairs so they couldn’t advertise it as an extra room. DCs use it as a den / playroom now they’re older, but it’s cold in winter.

@doodleygirl

Its not illegal to have an attic room, you just cant call it a bedroom.

Exactly. I had a '2 bed with attic room' when I sold it.