Finishing A Townhouse Attic
Enlarging an existing stairway or adding a new one will affect spaces below.
Finishing a townhouse attic. Every attic is different but a few established norms and practices will guide your renovation. These systems are small and powerful enough that you can cool off your whole house and still free up your attic space for other uses. In rare cases especially in new construction homes the attic may have been built unfinished with the correct flooring in place with the idea that the homeowner could later on finish the space. Stairs can take up a lot of space in both the attic and in the floor below so they are important considerations for planning.
To meet all three goals insulating your finished attic ventilating the roof and maximizing headroom use a combination of dense batt insulation rigid foam sheeting and air chutes. In most cases though the joists cannot support live loads and may not even be covered with boards. You can learn the proper code specifications and plan to insulate and wire your attic for better purposes than storage. Pull down stairs won t be appropriate in this case and you ll need a permanent staircase.
Los angeles attic remodeling prices. In l a traditional additions can easily run 90 000 and often cost more. Follow the rule of 7s. If you re finishing your attic insulating it to the proper r value can cause a dramatic loss of headroom if you limit yourself to fiberglass batts.
Finished attics need stairs that meet all of the standard staircase requirements. You also have to decide where the loft stairs will begin and check how much space it will need. Figure out how you re going to get up and down from the finished attic space. Your attic needs to be easily accessible in order to fulfill its function well.
A stair designed with an intermediate landing and two runs needs about 8 feet on the lower level. Enforcement varies but codes typically say that at least half of a finished attic must be at least 7 feet high and that this area must be a minimum of 7 feet wide and 70 square feet. In general stairs must be at least 3 feet wide and provide at least 6 feet 8 inches of headroom. A straight run stair will chew up 10 to 14 feet of floor space.