Day 1: Reinforcements
Before ripping-up the existing partial floor, I thought it best to add-in the new supports on each side of the loft. These take advantage of the large timber purlins in this traditional roof structure to transfer some of the load away from the ceiling joists. Conventionally you would install RSJs on each side, then install joists in-between. Since we're dealing with such a small amount of headroom, and since we know the build isn't being signed-off, we can cheat a little to save some space. However, it still needs to be well-supported.
The roof is actually in decent condition despite its appearance. The slates have been back-pointed, much of it has crumbled away but the slates are in good condition. A new roof would not have really been worth the cost. It would be preferable to have a modern roof membrane under the slates before converting the loft, but as-long as the slates are in decent condition it's not critical. The insulation is waterproof anyway so in the event of a leak, the water would most likely run-off under the slates. All of this was explained to the client before starting the work.
As you can see, older houses are not the cleanest to work in.
Each of these supports are bolted in-place wherever possible. Screws don't have the strength to be used for something like this, and using nails is not ideal since that would mean whacking everything with a hammer and disturbing the already crumbling back-pointing.
The opposite side of the loft was done the same way, but much further down, to make space for a storage cupboard on this side.
I installed a few temporary steel straps to the ceiling joists to avoid them moving too much while I was working up there.
Each one of the uprights is bolted with double-sided timber connectors to avoid any chance of movement and/or creaking.
Velux Window Installed
Normally I would do this first thing to get some fresh air up here, but it didn't arrive on-time. I didn't want to delay the project for it, so I was working in an unventilated fibreglass filled loft for a day or 2; not something I fancy doing ever again.
Once the window was installed, I had a way to get the long joist timbers into the loft via the roof. The ceiling joists are extremely uneven in this house, as you can expect in a house that's over 100 years old. To maximise what limited headroom we have, the new floor joists sit in-between the existing ceiling joists for the most-part. Except for the far corner, where the ceiling drops low-enough for the timbers to be installed on top (convenient).
Even in such a mess, I try to keep organised. It helps me avoid losing tools.
The cut-out for the new stairs is positioned above the front bedroom. Conveniently the front bedroom has a suspended ceiling to catch all the rubble while this work was being done.
Once the joists where in-place, the studwork could be started. This is done at this stage rather than after installing the floor to allow the studs to be bolted to the joists where possible to add more strength to the structure. This is a good idea since the floor does not have the usual RSJ support on each side.