Loft Conversion for More Living Space

A loft conversion for more living space home remodel involves taking an empty unused space in your home and transforming it into a usable room. Homeowners needing more living space can turn their vaulted ceiling into a bedroom, gym, home office or storage space.

Loft Conversion sample image courtesy iStock.

Compared to the cost of building a typical room addition, loft conversions are relatively inexpensive. For this reason and all the benefits that additional living space offers, they are becoming quite popular among San Diego residents.

If you’re planning on undertaking a DIY loft conversion, you need to know that the process can be very complicated. And it does involve a lot of work. This is why so many people prefer to have an experienced building contractor handle the job of creating a loft conversion for more living space. Especially someone who specializes in loft conversions like HK Construction.

Determining the Feasibility

The first thing you need to do is inspect the space where you intend to build your loft to determine if the dimensions will accommodate the conversion.

On entering the area you need to figure out if there is enough space under the ridge of your roof for a loft. To have enough headroom, there should ideally be 8 feet (2.45 m). However, some people get by with just 7 feet (2.1 m). There must also be at least 6.5 feet of clearance above positioning of the access stairs.

Check your roof to ensure that there are no leaks. If you see dark stains on the rafters you most likely do have a leak. So then roof repairs should happen first before the loft conversion since you will be building dormers and installing windows that will protrude through the roof.

Because the roof slopes and you need a certain amount of headroom, the feasibility of having a loft depends on whether you have a minimum height of about 7.5 feet (2.2 m) from the joist up to the apex. If your space meets this measurement then your home likely has the potential of accommodating a loft conversion.

To be sure, you may want to give HK Construction a call to schedule an on-site visit for a professional opinion. And while there they can give you an estimate for doing the loft conversion for you.

Strengthening the Structure

The ceiling joists that exist in most homes are usually only strong enough to support the ceiling, not any additional weight. This means that additional support is necessary to transfer the load from the loft floor over to the walls. The alignment of the roof supports would most likely require change as well. This would significantly increase the pressure at certain points on the floor of the house.

Figuring all this out yourself and doing the work is a huge job and therefore a very risky undertaking.

Benefits of Adding Loft Conversion Living Space

Having more loft conversion living space offers many benefits, which is why they’ve become so popular in recent years. Oftentimes, as much as 30% of the potential usable space in a home, is located in the proposed loft area. By converting your vaulted ceiling you can gain a large amount of living space for use as a bedroom, office, entertainment or kid’s playroom.

Many growing families decide to do a loft conversion in order to create more space so they can avoid the stress and cost of selling their home to move to a larger, more expensive home.

HK Construction has years of experiencing doing loft conversions in San Diego. So please call today to schedule a quote.