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Hi, I had had a structural engineer in at the weekend to look at my loft to advise of possible conversion options.
He advised I should consider a Ply Web Beam, about 1000mm height to support the roof structure, made up off beams of wood and 12 or 18mm plywood boards on either side nailled/screwed and glued to strengthen the frame, which would then be fitted from party wall to party wall using anchor bolts and resin glue. Apparently this is as strong as steel beams. He says they are now advising using this option as its a lot easier then getting large RSJ's into a loft, and its a growing trend amongst builders. I was totally surprised by this idea as I had not heard of this before (I admit i have limited knowledge on loft conversions).
He then says I would need 290mm wooden beams to span the roughly 5 meters of floor space by simply nailing and glueing these to the existing beams running along the ceiling and this will be more then strong enough to support the new loft floor. I admit this is all very new to me and this structural engineer has been in the trades for many years working all over the country so i've no doubt he knows his stuff. But i'm just curious how often these methods are used and if anyone has any experience of what the loft is like once is been done?
i've added a diagram
any advice will be much appreciated.
He advised I should consider a Ply Web Beam, about 1000mm height to support the roof structure, made up off beams of wood and 12 or 18mm plywood boards on either side nailled/screwed and glued to strengthen the frame, which would then be fitted from party wall to party wall using anchor bolts and resin glue. Apparently this is as strong as steel beams. He says they are now advising using this option as its a lot easier then getting large RSJ's into a loft, and its a growing trend amongst builders. I was totally surprised by this idea as I had not heard of this before (I admit i have limited knowledge on loft conversions).
He then says I would need 290mm wooden beams to span the roughly 5 meters of floor space by simply nailing and glueing these to the existing beams running along the ceiling and this will be more then strong enough to support the new loft floor. I admit this is all very new to me and this structural engineer has been in the trades for many years working all over the country so i've no doubt he knows his stuff. But i'm just curious how often these methods are used and if anyone has any experience of what the loft is like once is been done?
i've added a diagram
any advice will be much appreciated.
