the bat cave

like wise I'm going to view a house this evening, after the scalextric thread yesterday, i recon i can get a scalextric set up int he loft also,

I will be watching this thread closely - I'm in the same situation.

Couple of pointers from a non builder:

1) By law the beams in the loft have to be capable of carrying a normal load as per all other floors of the house. You should make sure that any boards added between beams are capable of carrying your load. Best to use tongue and groove to spread the weight and go for thick chipboard.

2) Make sure your loft has not been designed as the vented type. Some lofts have holes at each side to allow the free movement of air across the loft. If you want to store stuff up there then this will need blocking. I learnet this by putting old photos in the loft. The moist air caused them to rot.

3) To be done properly, the wooden beams need to be removed and replaced by a metal A frame. I have a small house and the estimate for mine was £17k. On top of this was the cost to sure up the floor and insulate the remaining roof area. Then added costs of electric sockets up there and lighting. Then i found out that (in my case) it was adding an extra story of house all internal doors needed to be fire proof.

Of course it depends on if you want it done properly or not.

A structural engineer might be able to do the math and find a way of spreading the load from some of the middle timbers to the outer timbers giving you a small sube type area in the middle of the loft.

my neighbour added an extension to her house and got told to put all those beams in the roof
she said it was so they couldnt extend up into the loft
not sure if thats right

That is worth noting! I was told i needed to do suspended floors from the walls whatever that is, sounded hard so i left it. The missus worrys about how much stuff i already have up there, (couple of boxes of car parts, One or two are fairly heavy but easily liftable, fuel pumps, turbo's etc) I have a couple of large not so heavy parts like Car seats i have them tucked into the "V"s of the A frames. So if i put some chipboard up nice and tidy spread over the beams, move my car parts up the corner i'll be able to sit up there and play scalextrc? ;D

Pop up to B&Q and get a few packs of loft boards (normally on some sort of special offer up there) lay them down as best you can and set up the Selectric track round the beams. Could be fun!

Then get a TV and a fridge full of beer up in the loft and your sorted.

My mate had a similar setup not so long ago and it looked quite good.

When i was a kid the house next door had had its loft 'converted' keeping the trusses intact.

Basicly there was a walkway down the middle and the floor had been boarded out. Between the trusses the guy had basicly built a huge 'desk' surface, he had computers and stuff up there and used the space under the desks in the eaves of the roof for storage. He paneled out the rest in hardboard and insulated it a bit. I think he put a window in the gable end too (semi detached house). He even built a set of stairs up to it in the airing cupboard!!

At the end of the day it was still a 'loft' but it was a loft you could use and was comfertable. I'm not sure if he bothered to beef up the floor joists so they were up to spec but i doubt it. Probably only cost a few £1000 nowerdays, the butey of it is you get alot more usable space but you don't add alot of weight to the roof and you don't touch the structure so it doesnt get expensive.

Great for Selextric!

lots of info to think about cheers. i don't have the internet so i've gone a few days without reading.
i've got a friend of the family who is a builder so he's gonna stick his head in and see what he can do.

I have an identical loft, massive but unusable in terms of cost effective diversion despite being able to do star jumps in the middle!

Basically I boarded the middle bit all the way so I could walk along, and then ran 2x4 across the joists on either side under the eaves, three along each side, the width of those ready made chipboard loft packs, and then boarded both sides like that. Figure the heavyish stuff spreads it's load onto the 2x4 which then spread it across all the joists so no point loads.

Raising on the 2x4 also give a nice void from the ceiling below to stuff with a good wodge of insulation.

Don't start messing around cutting the trusses, I used to work for a loft conversion company and i know you need flitch beams to spread the weight and support the roof.

The trusses are there for a reason and if you start cutting a few away you will risk 5+ tons of tiles falling on your head and killing you.

I'd seek professional advise before you start anything.