My Loft HC

The sound in the loft is great...I bought the paradigm monitor 5's before I moved and its the first time ive used them, and Im very impressed, they matched the cc350 centres I already owned, beautifully. Up to now I can have the sound up pretty loud and, as yet, I havent had a complaint from next door. The GF said she could hear the base during "return of the king" but thats it (she was in the bedroom below the sub).
Since putting the carpet on the walls the sound seems a little warmer and less snappy if you know what I mean.
The only problem Ive had is getting dust blobs in the PJ. I popped mine back to Discount Electrical over the weekend for a clean but its still there, may give it a blast myself and if it doesnt work its off to panasonic before the warranty runs out in November.

Just have to get myself a mini fridge and I'll be set for the footy on Sunday :smashin:

I'd like tosay to anyone thats thinking of doing something similar...GO FOR IT.
It may take a while and mean a lot of hard work (did most of mine myself) but its well worth it in the end.

P.S. Id like to thank Gary for his website which gave me the incentive to do it

Cheers :clap:


P.p.s ive just noticed in the pics above that it seems like ive got loads of kids but they are actually twins and one of them (Abbie) sat on each seat as I moved to take a picure from each side!!! Infact she'smanaged to get into all the pics!!How vain is that !? :eek:
 
Oooh thats nice...but if the other half catches me spending £100 on a fridge im in for it...have seen one in Index for £50 but its never in stock :(
Thanks anyway


On second thoughts that fridge hold more than twice the Index fridge...how much was delivery?
 
Just noticed Argos are doing the ENGLAND fridge for the same price..might pop down this saturday then pick up the cheap beer from asda :smoke:
 
For anyone else considering their loft, I have to say that if you have a reasonable sized one, I think it's an ideal place for a cinema room - it can be dedicated and have full light control, and doesn't mean compromising a room of the house. Fitting rockwool, plastic sheeting and plasterboard isn't that difficult, and it's relatively easy to strengthen the floor by doubling up on the existing joists, so if you have some DIY skills, it won't cost a great deal of money - litteraly just a few hundred pounds. Just remember not to make any structural alterations though. :)

If you want to convert it to full building regs and make it a room that complies, then that's a different kettle of fish, but for viewing movies I think it's a great alternative, especialy as you can't see much of the room when a movie is playing.

Glad your wall carpet did the trick for you too - my loft was quite echoey untill I added the carpet, so it's something I'd reccommend and can be very cheap to do - wallpaper paste and a thin cheap carpet is all you need. Probably not ideal in real accoustical terms, but works all the same.

I bought an air cleaner from ebay - a Bionair twin filter job. Not very quiet, but I put it on for a few hours before we go up to watch a film, and it can help get the dust down. I may get a cheap air-con unit for the Summer as it does get a bit warm up there during very hot days!

Gary.
 
Just popped into my local Homebase and picked up a portable air conditioning unit for £149...gonna test it tonight as the heat in the loft is pretty bad on days like today.
 
Great! Let me know what one you get and how it performs. I have an old chimney which went form the kitchen through the house/loft, so can use that for the exhaust. Unless the one your after is an evaporative type?

Gary.
 
They have 2 types..a 9000BTU/Hr (which I bought for £149) and a 12000BTU which incorporates a heater too (but costs £249)

It works very well indeed but is noisy...best to set it on a timer before you watch a film and the room should be chilled to perfection .
At the moment I have the vent hose shoved through the storage hatch...blowing into the eaves.

Hope that helps
 
I have been reading with interest some of the things that people have been doing with their loft spaces. I have a large loft space which I would like to convert into an area to use my Numark TTX1 turntables for mixing my records and or possibly a HC.

My concern however is how this will effect my property when I come to sell it?
Unfortunately there is no space to fit a fixed stair case and so it will not be possible to comply with the building regs required for a proper 'loft conversion'. Some of the things that I have read say that if it is a habitable room then it must comply with the building regs. So my question is really how much can I do before the room becomes 'habitable'?

Here is a description of what I currently have....

I have a 3 section timber ladder with a large hatch for easy access, the hatch has a closable lid made from 3/4 inch MDF for safety and sound proofing.

The floor area is fully insulated and decked out using the standard loft floor boards that slot together and screw to the joists.

I have a dedicated ring main with five double sockets around the perimiter of the room and two lights fitted to the peak of the pitched roof.

Here is what I would like to do next...

1. Fit carpet for added sound insulation and comfort.
2. Insulate betwen the rafters using Space Blanket or Kingspan, leaving an adequate space in the eves and between the roof tiles and the insulation for air circulation.
3. Make a lightweight 'ceiling' using hardboard (or possibly the heavier option using platerboard) then paint to finish.

So, if I go ahead with these next steps will I be able to sell the house without undoing the extra work? Or will I need to strip it all out again leaving just the boards and hatch.

Sorry for the long post but I really would like to know what can or can't be done before spending the extra time and money. :lease:
 
I'm curious to know this myself, but I think there are strict building regulations for allowing the room to be officialy 'habitable'. If you don't do those things, the room is just a glorified loft space for storage so the place can't be sold with the laft being advertised as a rom. Also, don't make any structural changes. I don't see why you will have trouble selling the place, unless the surveyor has a problem with seeing what's behind the boards etc. Maybe taking plenty of photos for evidence may help there. It might be an idea to talk with a 'Loft Shop' or similar or even an estate agents to see what info they may have.

Another thing is to not put a bed up there. Without the correct fire precautions etc that have to be adhered to it would be a safety hazard. I would think the loft hatch would preclude a lot of normal furniture going up there though.

It's your place, so you can do what you like to a point - if it's not compromising the building structure etc then I don't see the harm in it. How many people have a railway or similar up there? :)

Gary.
 
I've just come up against this myself. We are at the early stages of a self build project, the planning permission has been granted, and had a preliminary meeting with building control last week.

We're building a 3 bedroom bungalow, which for the time being will use the second bedroom for my cinema room (the 'Miniplex' :D ), however, we have specced attic trusses for the roof so that eventually if the bedroom is needed for other uses ( :rolleyes: ) the kit can go upstairs. The plan was to use a heavy duty loft ladder, which is more comparable to an open stair than a traditional loft ladder, but as far as building control is concerned, as it will be a habitable room (we're having a window in the gable) but even if we omit this it doesn't change), it must have a permanent staircase. Unfortunately putting a stair in will mean losing a downstairs bedroom, and the loftspace isn't high enough to use as a bedroom.

My architect is disputing this, and we are currently having full plans drawn up for submission for building regs. For the time being the plan is for the room to be used for dry storage and is being plastered, insulated and wired purely for convenience. Although that may change in a few years. ;)

Don't even get me started on disabled access! :(
 
Thanks for your reply Gary, having seen what you have done I think that I am going to carry on and complete the project. I'm not changing anything structural and so if a surveyor has a problem with it then at least it should not be too hard to put it back to how it is now. As I'm not planning on moving for at least a year I should have some time to enjoy the benefits.
 
hi big b,

your conversion looks great.

how high is the maximum pt in the pitch? we already have attic converstion but we are concerned that the roof height is not tall enough.

cheers,

julie
 
I think it was about 8ft from floor to apex. I put a small plasterboard ceiling in at the apex (about 2ft wide) and there is still plenty of height.
I'm 6ft and didnt bang my head on the ceiling tonight when Liverpool scored!! :thumbsup:
 
Hi,

Great job, looks very nice.

I have just got a Toshiba ET1 & was going to set it up in my loft.
I had put a floor down when we moved inabout 18 months ago just to store some things. But now i have been bitten by the home cinema bug. but reading this has got me a little worried as i have just laid the flooring on the joists as they are (not strengthened the floor atall) as at the time it was mainley just for storage.

Please tell me this will NOT be a problem ?

I had'nt considered this until reading this thread.
As i DON'T do DIY!!! :nono: :laugh:
 
It depends on the joists - how big they are and the spacing. You'll probably be fine if you don't put much up there and limit the amount of people - place the seating over the walls below so that the weight is on, and not between walls where the beams are likely to flex the most.

If it's reasonably easy to take the floor up, a good way to strengthen the existing joists is to screw new joists alongside - you may have 4x2 joists currently, and screwing 4x2s alongside the existing beams will make an equivalent of a 4x4. This will be much stronger, but screwing 6x2s will be better still, as they will have more resistance to deflection than the 4x4. Go up and measure them and see what size they are and what the spacing is between them (14ins for example). Also try to measure the span between the load bearing walls they are resting on.

Does the ceiling seem to flex much when you walk around up there? Ask the other half to look at the ceiling from below while your up there bouncing around to see how much deflection is happening. Most loft joists aren't designed with the same load bearing capacity as the living areas so that's why they are normaly smaller. In my house the floors are 6x2 but the loft was 4x2.

Gary.
 
Gary, thanks for your reply,

The main area that i'll be using is 11 ft long by 9 ft wide.
The joists are 4x2s and there 14 ins apart(9 in total), there are 2 load bearing walls directly under the 9ft wide area, 3ft apart. Exactly below were any seating will go. It will mainly be used by 2/3 people as the other half's not to keen on going in the loft to watch movies. One of the reasons for the Tosh ET1 (also the low price, got it for £365) is that i can bring it downstairs if needed for use in the frontroom, as i work 2pm - 10pm the loft would mean i could use the PJ before going to work (if i so choose) , main use for PJ will be DVD & Xbox. Have got enough white blackout cloth to make a 72" (frontrooom) & 100" screens.
 
It sounds like you should be OK. If you can double up the 4x2s then that would be better still, but the walls being 3ft apart means the span there shouldn't be under as much stress as say a 19ft span.

I also used black-out cloth as my first screen, and it does a reasonable job IMHO - definitely good value.

Gary.
 
I know it has been a long time, but did you screw the 2 x 2 on top of the joist or did you screw then across the joists like a grid.

Cheers,
Colin
 
I'm part way through my own 'conversion' (the plasterers are coming on Friday :)), about to decide on colour scheme, Gary's cheap carpet idea sounds good, but what about the ceiling, a dark matt paint?

As for building regs, I've been told (by my financial advisor who was thinking of doing his own loft and plays footy with a buildings inspector) that if you board more than 20% of the loft it will be deemed 'habitable' and therefore must comply with the regs :eek:

It doesn't matter what you 'say' you will be using it for, so 'storage only' won't make any difference to the potential problems when you come to sell. Your purchaser's solicitor would apparently be entitled to require you to retrospectively apply for building regs approval (which of course you'll be unlikely to get, otherwise you'd have applied in the first place :nono:)

Of course I think such issues would be more likely if you were to attempt to add value to the house by saying it has a home cinema room, or an office/gym/extra bedroom etc..., which no-one on the thread has suggested, but my interpretation of the regs is it doesn't matter what you say it's for, it's that 20% figure, cover more than that and you have a potential problem.

Not that I'm stopping, but then I'm not spending that much money, and I expect to get good use out of the result. That's the key for me, a grand or so and I have my cinema/office/gym, but if it was a few thousand and I end up having to rip it out again to leave less than 20% covered, or get involved in legal wrangles at sale time, maybe I'd reconsider. Or do as I have and go for a loft ladder instead of a space-saver staircase, and do without Velux windows, when I could do with a couple, basically cutting the cost down where I can, just in case.

Anyway, about that colour scheme :rolleyes:?
 
I've just sold my house complete with the loft as I had been using it (dedicated cinema room) and had no problems at all. In fact the offer on the house included me leaving the projector and screen in place. I'm not sure if the 20% figure is a local council regulation, but it was never questioned or picked up in the survey as far as I know (and I left the ladder in place so the surveyor could get easy access to it). In my case I never considered it an extra room and it wasn't advertised as such (house price was the same as similar properties without the loft being boarded out). I think some regulations vary from council to council so maybe this is one of them? I've seen some companies advertising loft conversions with loft ladders and the loft being used as storage or similar, so some areas seem to allow it. I guess the best approach is to ask your local building inspector how they view things.

I didn't want any windows up there but fitted one as a means of escape (blacked outr) anyway, along with a linked smoke detector (to the one downstairs) and rope ladder.

As for colour scheme, I'd always suggest matt black as a mininum, and preferably black felt or velvet for best image quality (no light bouncing back off the walls and onto the screen).

Gary
 
I think you're right, there does seem to be an element of interpretation with the building regs. When I asked locally I was told so long as the room is for storage only it wouldn't need to comply, but that was quite a while ago now. I only spoke to my financial advisor yesterday, and the 20% figure was news to me. I didn't know whether it was a recent change or perhaps because he lives in the next town. Either way, I'm cracking on, when it comes to selling, it's storage :smashin:

Thanks for the decor tip, I think I'll try black carpet on the floor and black felt or velvet on the walls. Wish me luck with the cutting out and pasting :rolleyes:
 

The latest video from AVForums

Is 4K Blu-ray Worth It?
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Back
Top Bottom