Buying - Attic Conversion Missing Compliance Cert - Fixing

100DuckSizeHorses

Hi,

So I'm buying a house - expecting to close the sale in the coming month or so. The house has a dodgy attic conversion which seems not compliant with building regs. The bank are still happy to give us the mortgage with the qualified title, we are aware its not going to be a habitable space, insurance is proving to be a nightmare but still working on it.

footprint of the house is roughly 11.5m * 8.5m - here are the floor plans and some images

Our engineer has flagged that we can add steel under the ceiling to provide the adequate support. How much would I be looking at to add the steel here? I'm also worried about the layout of the windows at the front and back. I assume the steel need to go into the gable wall, based on the window layout will there be extra work needed to support it around the windows? Also can the steel for this kind of thing be built and fitted in sections?

Thanks in advance for any input or advice!

Bracken81

Firstly its a lovely house, seems in good condition

Very hard to say how much Steel is needed, would need to see how the Attic floor is constructed currently

Doing any kind of of Refurb/Steel installations will require plasterwork and decoration thereafter with possible window/door alterations

If I was in your position Id leave the steel work until later if possible and complete Dormer Window installs with steel and everything else, when you have a budget (NB - I really dont know how bad your attic space is obviously)

100DuckSizeHorses

Thanks Bracken81 - to be honest it's the kind of thing we just want to get out of the way so it's not hanging over us... pardon the pun. Would like to sort it before any other work like new windows downstairs too. The space up there is fine for our uses - office and storage - just over 2.1m and we're short

Had a chat with a contractor and sent on some pictures/videos. Think I'm looking at getting the whole thing taken down, roof reraftered and rsjs put in get it sorted. Will talk to a structural engineer (need to for drawings) but just want to try understand it all. (I'm not in construction or engineering - complete novice here)

I think all the wood is too small. There are

12cm * 35mm floor joists, 95mm * * 35mm Roof rafters, bout an 8.5-9m span. There are 20 joists and rafters running along the attic - spacing seems off in places - some 50cm apart others 70cm

There seems to be doubled up wood on the sections of the joists that are actually under the attic floor

There are vertical wood posts at some points from the floor joists to the roof rafters. These connect at the floor joists with another beam coming down from the rafter at an angle where the attic floor begins and the wood doubles up (picture below) There seems to be sections of wood between the rafters but I'm not sure they're supporting anything

There is also diagonal bracing

The stairs runs perpendicular to the joists and with all the internal walls being stud partition I'm guessing this would have an impact on the support - those rafters either side of the stairs must be resting on the stud walls either side

The attic was converted 23 years ago and there is some light cracking at the front thats likely caused by the attic weight

Questions I have are

(Long shot) but any chance this is adequate support?

Does the whole thing really need to come down and be reraftered or would it actually be possible to fit steel beams and posts to support the existing work? or does it look like they damaged the roof structure

Where the attic floor starts across the span - post, angle section both connecting to the floor joist with the roof rafter on the other end of both - the wood inside this point seems to have been doubled up - picture below

Under the attic floor - looks like a larger block of wood just on top of the joist

Where the post connects to the rafter on top

Angle section connecting to the rafter

iwillhtfu

To retro fit steel into that and upgrade all the joists and roof supports I'd say you'll be taking the attic space back to the bones.

I'd imagine the rooms are fairly small anyway so as above, I'd consider leaving any remedial work until the budget allows a complete upgrade. For insurance purposes I'd be frugal with the info on the attic space. plenty of houses sold with similar conversions but rightly or wrongly omit the attic conversion.

mickdw

It appears that the house has roof trusses.

Truss is designed as a unit with lighter timber members able to be used compared to a cut roof because members will be in tension.

The problems start if someone cuts into trusses. The entire truss will then become unfit for purpose unless expertly assessed and modified.

House has concrete tiles too which only adds to issues as they are much heavier than slate.

With current dimensions, you won't get a building regulation compliance cert in terms of it being habitable space Even if you carry out structural repairs.

Ideally if re roofing, you would get planning to alter design to create real habitable rooms although simply going higher might not be possible considering all houses surrounding.

100DuckSizeHorses

Thanks everyone. Feels like the trusses that must have been cut for the staircase are going to be a pretty big issue

Complete ball park - how much would I be looking at to get all of this fixed? (in both the raising the pitch and the nonhabitable,no dormer windows cases?) - we did chat with an architect and engineer before closing but it's looking like the the figure we had was way off 😓