I'll catch up on the following

Sun tunnel fitted, I did finish the one in the bath room but not taken pictures yet. All ish the floor joists in, rock wool down, Stud wall frame -crazy angles. Insulation ordered. Screwfix order arriving tommorow so crack on with first fix electrics.

Which reminds me, I rewired all the upstairs lights so the cables aren't going under the new floor.

The start of some serious household disruption

The Loft conversion makes it's grand entrance in to the rest of the house.

Breaking through, Now everyone can see what I'm upto

Top of the old airing cupboard

Trimmed ceiling joists and wall hanger

The timber work for the staircase opening is simple, two 200 x 50 screwed together one end resting on the inner wall the other on the a joist hanger on the steel beam. The other side of the opening rests on a masonry joist hanger in to the party wall. A 9" angle grinder with diamond blade cut just deep enough to get this in without having to take a brick out. This also trims the ceiling joist, screwed timber to timber reiforced with angle brackets.


Then came the fun part, knocking the rest of the ceiling down. It only took about 20mins but the clearing up after took 3 hours and I should have given Wendy some advanced warning. I've also noticed it's getting colder of an evening now and there's no insulation.

Welding Loft Joist Hangers to the beams

This is a loft conversion question that seems to asked alot. How to hang the joists off Steels, (rsj's). Well this way is probably unique.

The normal way is to fix timber to beams first. But I've got a welder!

Joist hangers Welded on beam

This was a job I wanted to make sure the building inspector wasn't going to grumble about. I had spec these to welded on the draws that were passed but I'd changed the design from the original being on a standard UB.


So make them twice as strong. I first welded two hangers together, plug welding through all the nail holes. Then drilled 3 12mm holes in each leg. Then the tricky task of getting the levels right, the lazer level came in handy with a slight adjustment for the slope of the not so acurate Victorian ceiling heights. I had to get the new floor joist as close to the old ceiling as I could allowing about 5mm minimum for deflection. With that sorted the it went well after intially trying stick welding for the extra power and giving up because the power blew away the hangers. The MIG did the job nicely, plug welding through the big holes with good penertration into the beam .


So Hangers On time for some more timber.

Sun tunnel hole -velux

Sun tunnel hole looking down

sun tunnel hole looking up

With the rest of the loft conversion moving along slowly but steadily, I want a job I could quickly see the results. I also wanted to finish the floor in the storage area so the first sun tunnel had to fitted. First I reinforced the ceiling, it being old plaster it would have crumbled away when I touched it with the jigsaw. Half an inch of plaster with the wire mesh in the middle did the trick. I couldn't avoid having to trim the ceiling joist as the tube would not fit inbetween and I wanted to position it exactly over the sink.