Desks Built Into Attic Joists

Hire an engineer to inspect your house s foundation and framing to ensure they can carry the extra load.

Desks built into attic joists.

Even though townhouse loft conversions have become extremely popular in the last couple of years the process of transforming a common truss into an attic truss isn t as easy as it may sound. Attic joists for live loads. You can build your desk into this small nook and create a built in desk. Currently they are supporting a ceiling and bracing the roof but you ll be adding furniture and people and possibly removing cross bracing.

Once you convert attic space into living space you need to bring it up to the standards of modern building codes. It needs more. Please read disclaimer at end of description sorry this is my first video and i do a terrible job explaining but. You could create a desk in the space under your staircase on the landing at the top of your stairs in a larger hallway or the nook meant for your laundry appliances.

The missing piece of information is those miserable little beasts called the building and energy codes. Even a little drill in the wrong place can cause the structure to weaken resulting in annoying bounce and sag you experience every time while crossing the weakened floor. According to the nationwide building society adding a loft conversion to your home can increase the value of an average property by more than 54 000. Sistering installing new larger joists next to the existing ones is one way to bring your attic floor up to code.

Here s how to make undersized and o. Joists carry the weight of the walls furniture and people on them. I think the building department will want detailed structural calculations. If you re building a stair case from scratch consider a switchback layout.

Nook built in desk ideas. At a minimum you may need to strengthen the attic s floor joists which are often too shallow or spaced too far apart for the job. Often existing joist bays are filled with electrical and heating ducts that will need to be relocated. You also need to ensure that the joist spacing is adequate.

Take a look around your home and look for unused or wasted space. Joist dimensions are only part of the equation. When a load is applied to a joist it creates a tension in the wood along the top edge. We extended into the loft and didn t need fire doors or escape windows.

Standard joist spacing for the installation of attic flooring materials is 16 inches on center oc. That means you ll need 2x10 floor joists or maybe 2x8 in rare circumstances and at least 2x12 roof rafters.