That's for a site visit. To produce calculations for the rafters combined with the C16 + TR26 together would be £125+VAT this is from an SE used in the past.
When the stairs arrived, the only way to get them in was to cut the handrail on the existing stairs. Decided to replace handrail with oak as will match the oak doors, looking to replace newel caps later on. Lower stair newel was already notched to accept mortise. Upper newel, slightly off center. Angle copied from old handrail using sliding bevel and cut accordingly. Lower connection secured using screws, pre-drilled and countersunk, cover trim should hide fixings. Handrail to lower newel post in situ. Handrail to upper post glued in, a large spax screw was driven from the oppsited end to pull everything tightly together, post will be filled and painted afterwards. Large spax screw fixing. Decided on using chamfer stopped 32mm spindles. Original base rail is not rebated so looking at replacing this as well. Haven't found anything I like. Looked at all major sheds. The original one has been grooved underneath and like the way it has been shaped and blends in, other ones I have looked at will be square ended. Base rail showing spindle locations.
Looking to restart this thread. Spent last two months decorating both bedrooms. Thought I would tackle the bedrooms first as if I didn't get the loft complete this year at least the rooms are in good order. Spent few days sorting out all the gear upstairs. Now located in bedroom on 3 shelves and am trying to keep it all organized. Everything from paint to socket back boxes. Today have spent a few hours taking the wall on the new stair wall back to bricks. Going to put insulated plaster board here. Got 5-6 weeks clear to concentrate on the loft as will be busy doing work during summer until beginning of September.
Decided on the advice from BMC220 as well as BCO to move the stairs So I can get in insulated plasterboard. Going to use 27.5mm Celotex PL4000 or similar. It is 15mm with 12.5mm plasterboard on top. Before stairs were removed, chipped away all the plaster back to brickwork, used a scruth chisel and club hammer to keep noise at minimum took about 4 hours to remove it all. Underneath stairs will be putting in 23mm overall thick insulated plasterboard. Channeled a chase so boarding can fit underneath the plaster on the wall. Stairs came with ply risers, they had 3 angled blocks and 3x screws securing the back of riser to tread. Put in an extra one on each end as was conning away slightly. This was the access hatch I made plan on putting in a recessed knob similar to this so the lif can be pulled up. Top riser couldn't be wedged in from the back as string had no housing joints. Instead using 18mm ply cut to sized and screwed to timber joist. Some work needing doing. Had to to lower the top tread in the post further after moving the stairs, could get them back in the same place. So made of wood infill. Telebeams aren't fully level so top tread is adjusted to finish flush with flooring. This was because the other side of housing should have matched the the post.
Last Telebeam, stuck on 25mm batten at 400c/c with stixaal to accept plasterboard. Think i'm going to add 25mm celotex to fill the void. The telescopyc section had an extra wood infill to make sure they are all in line. 63mm CLS timber used as joist to support ceiling plasterboard below. This was fixed using screws through the battens. Ceiling plaster boarded, added insulation prior. As there are a number Telebeams in this area, cant put down-lights, so will be installing wall lights on the stud wall. Joints made good between artex ceiling using plaster joint tape and easy fill. Wall on window side is read for plastering with angle bead set. Windows board was re-positioned again after fitting several months ago it had shrunk back leaving a gap. Used foam so easy to readjust. Finally decided on what I will be doing to finish the ceiling above the stairs.... Going to remove flat ceiling and just have it sloped. Other bedroom being used as a temporary store, all removed from loft. Keeping things organized saves time finding all the bits!
I sloped my ceiling in the new stairwell too Jit and stuck a Velux in to drag light into the core. Worth doing IMO
Was thinking of putting a small Velux window above the stairs, but decided to leave it. I have 4 windows in total, 2 front and 2 back. Plus I have a window in the landing now which lets in a lot of light, if there wasn't a window there then would have put one in while I had the others installed.
Another update! Making up the stud infil above the stairs (spandrel)? Need to start thinking about services especially electrical routes. Thought it was good idea to route cables through to open section of joist. It would only mean one hole is needed on the end beam so cable can come out. The origanl infill pices was removes and set back further to leave entry point. Another view showing to open void, with telescopic extender I beam. The beam go in about 600mm+ into the box section so not all the way through. For the infill a length of timber is cut short and glued to I beam using Stixall. Timber is flush with battens so plasterboard lies flat. Between these roof rafters, noggins were installed at roughly 600c/c to provide a fixing point. Making sure that noggins are the same depth of celotex to maintain airflow gap. Upright made up and birds mouthed into the timber beam above stairs. Two screws are secured into the bottom end of the stud plate on the beams. As an afterthought the sole plate could have been left longer then cut to suit which made some additional work. Another upright fixed in at roughly mid-point. Then ready for celotex. Used 75mm infill. for main wall. The voids in the beams were filled with 25mm celotex in two layers. Not sure if it was need be felt good to do it Hole left for cables to be routed. All finished.
Decided to use ducting to route the cables. Did file the burr on the inside edge of the aluminum but thought it would be better to use ducting. Only had to drill one hole in Telebeam side. 38mm hole drilled. One end has been stixalled to the beam so it stays in position without falling through. 27mm i/d ducting. Ducting will be passed through the hole after all cables have bee routed.
Not done much now. Now that I have moved to my own place, loft doesn't seem a priority Trying to get my place sorted now. Had BC come out last week to check insulation etc, as well as staircase access point above stairs. Just wanted to say if anyone is ticking about doing something similar, then go for it! Hard work, but very rewarding. Hopefully this thread will be be very useful. Room when finished. Would be best room in house, as so much light. The house was modern about 80's build with prefabricated trussed. But a lot of houses have high headroom so would make the room very large. The loft when finished is quite large, but headroom overall is not great, think it was any smaller than may not be feasible. Manged to get the two bedrooms finished so at least if loft is unfinished it will all be quite warm over the winter, especially with the celotex! last year was cold brrr.., but glad I started last last year. As some of the high temperatures we have had last month would have been unbearable to work. Once the celotex goes in it does keep the room a lot cooler as the foil I suppose is reflecting the heat back?
Hey, congratulations! Well done. I wish I could do that. I am doing research on my own loft conversion. I have the modern truss loft so I am looking into telebeam as an option. Do you have any suggestions? Is it really cheaper than normal beam? I am going to use builders as I can't do it myself so is it still worth it overall? Any pros and cons since you moved in? If you have the choice to do it again, would you still choose telebeam? Thank you.
Because parents house is mid terrace we had to get a party wall agreement. The coucnil were the owner for both properties and wanted everything done to ball. i.e method statements etc. Although the telebeam system was quite dear compared to getting in a structural engineer and steels for loft. The system was straightforward and easy so recommend here being able to a lot of the work myself has more than made up for the extra i paid If I had gone for steels. Would never have managed to do the steels myself.... If your house is end terrace or even detached then steels would be the way to go. Some disadvantages are cables need rerouting, although holes can be drilled into the beams to route cables and pipe etc. I didn't want to drill holes in the beams so ended up rewiring the upper floor lighting circuits, not much cost wise anyway and better in the long run, flooring was glued down so would be difficult to ever take up, but with careful planning on routes should make things a lot easier. More beams are needed near stair opening, so may not be able to put downlights in ceiling below as no room. Ended up installing 2 x wall lights which I think give better appeal than downlights. Not getting any creaks like you would do on a normal floor system and everything seems very rigid.
I wouldn't worry too much about the cost, the benefits far outweigh from what can be gained. Look at the invoices after the project is done
I am mid terrace so 2 party walls. I assume my neighbours both want independent surveyors. My other neighbour had his loft done for 30k. He used steel beam not telebeam. I think it's too much of a cost. I am hoping I can spend 10k less but not reduce the quality. By the way, I would think telebeam is a lot lighter. Do you know how much lighter compared with normal steel beams conversion? Thanks!
If you can get the neighbors to use the same surveyor then it would reduce the cost dramatically. Not sure about the cost but would think it has costed about £20K to have the work done, a lot of the work has improved the house, like new doors etc, new house windows were installed last year, which needed done anyway. Beams cost 6k so 10k looks very small. Depends on the span from outer wall plat to outer wall plate (i.e span). this will let you know which beam system you need. my one TB7.0 which is 7m span. Beams weigh about 30kg. without the extenders. I got scaffolders to stack them on the scaffold for a small price. When you factor some beams could weigh upto 37kg/m. A single steel couldn't be able to be positioned in roof so will need it splicing into 2 or even 3 sections.
Looking to restart this thread. Have been working on the loft for a couple of months now after a looong break All the celotex was added between the rafters, and I had another building inspection carried out yesterday and he is happy with the work. I will be adding 25mm battens to existing rafters, then super-quilt insulation will be stapled, before another row of battens are used at right angles. Will try and get some pictures loaded this week. I think I can see it coming to a close now, this has been a big project.
Started work in February. New stairs to have spotlights underneath. Wasn't sure how many at first? thought 5 but then looked too many and decided on 3. Support brackets were positioned between the stingers this was constructed using 63x38mm CLS timer, but 2"x2" would have sufficed. One/two angle plates were screwed on the ends which acted as a fixing point to the inner strings. Lights were positioned in the center of the rise and going to achieve maximum height for the spotlights and braces were positioned to plasterboard lengths. 1mm T&E routed for spotlights. 900x1800mm 12.5mm plasterboard fixed to underside of stairs. Centre of braces were marked prior to enable screws to fasten boards. Holes were drilled to spotlights specs using holesaw. Thin angle mesh plaster bead secured to edge of stringer. Plasterboard was fixed prior to cutting the edge flush with the stinger. Had some off-cuts of fire plasterboard and decided to remove the original plaster that was there, I was going to put in half a section, but then thought I could end up with cracks at the joints even though joints would have been taped, so had to carefully remove the original plasterboard and reinstate. 3 spotlights wired up.