# Attic Conversion



## Da Vinci (20 Oct 2010)

Hello all,

would anyone be able to give me a rough cost per square foot to convert an attic to living accomodation? The roof needs to be raised by about 3 feet to get the headroom so the walls will need building up by that much. 

We are looking around at second hand houses and need to factor the additional cost of work if we buy a house that needs doing up.

Thanks


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## onq (20 Oct 2010)

Da Vinci,

You appear to be confusing two things and you may be unaware of some other things.

The two things you seem to be confusing are; -


 The relatively moderate cost of converting an attic proper
 The far more significant cost of removing a roof and ceiling, stabilising the superstructure, raising the walling 900mm or so and reconstructing the ceiling and roof, with additional walling costs if there are gables as opposed to hipped ends to the roof.
Regardless of anything else, raising the roof is not exempted development and will require planning permission.
These comments assumes this is a detached house and not a semi-detached dwelling, where your problems are likely to multiply.

The things you may be unaware of are the additional measures you need to compliantly convert an ordinary attic space, including:


installing a permanent stairs with adequate rise and going, geometry and head height
upgrading the fire rating of the  intermediate floor as required
installing fire doors to rooms accessed from the stairs enclosure as required
upgrading the fire rating stairs enclosure as requried
upgrading thefire detection and alarm system as requried
installing a rooflight/alternative means of escape
extending the insulation of the building envelope as requried
There is no such thing as a simple attic conversaion any more, despite what cowboy contractors and incompetents might suggest.

May I respectully suggest that you retain an archtiect to advise you in these matters before you end up committing yourself to enormous expense because you're not au fait with the regulations in this regard.

I'm sure you can agree a retainer whereby he will comment on several properties before you select one and retain him to oversee that one.

ONQ.

[broken link removed]

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## RKQ (21 Oct 2010)

+100% with ONQ.
Removing an existing roof, increasing wall heights and building a new roof is a major development that requires full planning permission. It would need to be an excellent attic room to justify the cost and disruption.


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## Da Vinci (21 Oct 2010)

Thanks for the replies guys.
I think I will ring around a few local architects today and see if they will work for us on a retainer as you suggested.
Between the legal stuff, planning stuff, exempted stuff....my head is melted!


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