While the laws surrounding planning permission for extending homes has relaxed somewhat over the years there are still a number of stipulations in regards to turning a loft space into a habitable environment.
Roof height for loft conversion.
There are minimum practical requirements for headroom which the designs for your loft conversion must be able to meet.
Take a tape measure and run it from the floor to the ceiling at the tallest part of the room.
If it s 2 2m or more your loft should be tall enough to convert.
Measuring head height for a loft conversion.
The minimum height you need for a loft conversion is 2 2m and you can easily measure this yourself.
The ideal scenario is if you can stand upright in the centre of your loft and raise your arm above your head without crunching your hand on the inside of the roof.
The ridge is the centre point of your roof this will be where you measure from and down to your feet.
When you measure from the bottom of the ridge timber to the top of the ceiling joist you need to have at least 2 2m of usable space for a conversion to be suitable.
Where a property already has a steep pitched roof the eventual loft conversion will be much easier and ideally you are looking for headroom in the loft of around 2 2 to 2 6 meters.
To assess whether you have the space to accommodate this measure the clear headroom of your existing space from the top of the joists to the bottom of the rafters.
Don t be shy measure the height with a tape measure.