Addition of loft bedroom - Post #4 (Installing the two Velux Skylights)

I can't believe that its been almost 8 months since my last update on the loft / bedroom reno.

That being said work and soccer were very busy this year and we did go back to the UK for a holiday. Working in the loft during the Summer is unbearably hot (Until the skylights were installed in the fall) and unbearably cold in the Winter (Until the insulation is installed, ongoing!!).

In this post I will update on the installation of the two skylights, I wasn't looking forward to this but it all worked out in the end. Most of the post will be photo's its much easier to see rather than explain.

First stage is working out where the skylights will go, I used a few odd pieces of insulation to ensure that they looked right in the room before I stated.

Once your happy with the location, the one truss needs to be removed, make sure that its cut as square as you can.



Sorry can't easily rotate the image in my Blog editor, any suggestions?
Once the truss has been removed you need to add support for the missing truss and also add additional support for the skylight, take extra and make sure the 4 sides are square and the right size.



This is the moment of truth, once you cut a hole in your roof your committed!! I double checked all my measurements before I got my recip saw out.
As I spent time making sure the opening was square and the right size, cutting the hole only takes a few minutes. 




Next step is to cut the shingles approx 2 1/2 inches around the perimeter so the skylight can sit flush on  the roof.




Rather than using the galvanised nails supplied I used deck screws to secure the skylight, make sure the skylight is square before you start nailing / screwing. You can see the blue marks I scribed on the roof before the skylight went in place, makes it much easier to centralise the unit. The blue marks show the corners of the cut out.



Image from inside the loft room with the two skylights fully installed, sorry I didn't show any details of the flashing install, once I was on the roof I wanted to get the job done and my camera was on the inside.

In the next post, and I promise it won't be 8 months I will go over the insulation for the room.

Cheers

B...

Addition of loft bedroom - Post #3

Welcome to the third update on this project.

As a quick update, above our garage we have a large loft area with real potential for an extra room.

Prior to this post the floor had been structured with 10x2's glued and nailed to the existing 2x6's.
In this first image you can see the first 8x4' floor board in place. I choose 3/4 OSP. Even though 5/8ths is good enough I like to add a little extra, this adds a little more stability and also allows for a hardwood floor in the future. Also note in this image the vapour / gas barrier. As this room is above the garage you must ensure that there is a full gas barrier to avoid any exhaust fumes from vehicles below, this also doubles as the vapour barrier. Don't forget it needs to be in the "Warm in winter" side of the structure hence placing it directly beneath the floor.

This second image shows a little added structure to support the far wall, as the flooring 2x10's were placed either side of the existing 2x6's there was almost a 4" step from one side to the other, I wanted to ensure that the wall was well supported so I added these 2x4's every 16" to give the wall plenty of support. The wall would eventually partly support the roof, as with most roofs they sag a little in the middle, I wanted to make the walls fairly straight so later on I would jack the middle part of the roof up about an inch and a half, without these supports there was a risk of forcing the the floor to bow downwards.

Once the floor was laid the next task was to start on the three knee walls. After the first one was installed I needed to add a referance line around the room so that they would all be square to the first.

As you can see I used a laser level to help with this task, a great little tool which saves allot of messing around with chalk lines or spirit levels opposite you can just about see it in action.

The final image in this post shows one of the side walls and the long end wall.

As mentioned above I jacked up the middle of the end wall almost 2" this was a little challenging with the creaks and groans, but it was well worth it. Without this being done the wall you see when you walk in to the room would show this bow which I know would bug me.

Stay tuned for the next stage.

B...

Addition of loft bedroom - Post #2

As promised here is an update on the loft reno project. In the initial post I outlined the rough plan of the project. In this second post some nasty stuff found in the area and a little about the base structure.

Unfortunately I don't have a good image of the wall between the house and the garage loft but what the previous owners had done was a definite no no.

To help insulate between the cold space in the loft and the adjoining bedroom they had added insulation to the wall, this in itself isn't such a big issue but to hold the fibre insulation to the wall they had made two major mistakes. Firstly they had stapled the insulation to the wall, severely compressing it making it effectively useless and secondly to help stop drafts, I assume, they had stapled over that sheets of thin plastic. In addition to using the pink insulation they had nailed some old suspended ceiling tiles. Not the greatest plan but what makes the whole thing a real problem was the tumble dryer exhaust. This was vented straight into the loft space which as you can work out pushed, over time, many gallons of warm moist air into a super cold area during the winter. And as I am sure you can guess there was a build up of mold, seen in this second image.

So the first part of this project was to have a damn good clean up to remove all the old, now damp insulation and soggy, mold invested ceiling tiles. Always take care with mold, seek advise if your not sure as it can be dangerous. My loft was well ventilated and with a mask and gloves I very carefully placed all the contaminated pieces in large plastic bags for disposal.

After the clean up I was able to start structuring the floor. Thankfully when the house was built the original owners specified the structure to be strong enough to support a second floor addition. The steel RSJ ("I Beam") was significant in size. The existing floor / ceiling was made from 2x6 joists, obviously these would not support a new floor and they would have to be strengthened. Based on the various structure guides on the Internet the addition of 2x8 would be strong enough.

I decided to go with 2x10 joists, these were glued and nailed to the original 2x6 joists and would give ample strength. The reason for going stronger than code was two fold, firstly I always like to make sure that the floor will not "bounce" with kids its always a good idea, and stronger is always better. Secondly to tie in with the height of the existing second floor 2x10 would allow an almost perfect height match.

In the next two images you can see a few of the joists added and the start of the insulation. Getting these 2x10 (16ft long) pieces of lumber into the loft space was hard work, there was very little space to move and you have to be very careful not to drop them onto the ceiling when putting them in place as they could easily fall through and end up in the garage. In total I used 22 joists, this part of the project was quite challenging more for the physical aspect than the technical difficulty. One thing to bear in mind when laying joists is the natural bend in all lengths of lumber. Firstly you should always have the bow facing upwards, over time they will tend to settle and if the bow is upwards they tend to settle to being straight.

Another big tip is to have them placed in order of bow, to make sure that the joists of equal bow were next to each other I stacked them on top of each other in order to make sure that my floor wasn't up and down across its width. This may sound like overkill but when I measured the difference in bow from the best to the worst joist was over 1/2 inch. If the worst was placed adjacent to the best floor would feel very uneven, by having them staged removes any gross changes in height.

In the next post starting the knee walls.

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Second major project - Additional Loft Bedroom.

One thing I have found in the last few years is that I need to have jobs to do, I feel comfortable knowing that there is plenty to do and I need to be busy. Maybe I should get some hobbies!!
The next Reno being undertaken is the addition of a 4th bedroom above the garage. Don't worry I haven't forgot about the Kitchen Reno that's pretty much complete, more posts to follow on the progress of that project.

Our garage is a reasonably good size almost 21' x 27', with no rooms above it. On the face of it its a pretty straight forward task but not for the average handyman. The beauty of our house is that the roof line of the garage loft allows for a room to be added without any changes to the roof. This definitely makes the task a whole lot easier.

The plan is to turn the open space seen in the second image into a room approx 16' x 14' with two descent size closets.

At the time of this posting I am partway through laying the floor, which in my opinion is one of the most difficult parts of the project, large wood with little space to move, more to come on that part!!

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