Thinking of buying a bungalow with a shallow roof. I want to raise to create an upstairs but limited to my neighbours existing ridge height so slightly compromised. The plot is sloped back to front so whilst the back door is 6" above ground level the front of the house dpc sits 9 courses above ground and has suspended floors. I would like to replace the suspended floor to front half of house with a solid insulated floor and drop this as many courses as possible allowing me to drop the floor upstairs too to solve my height problem. I will have a few internal steps on both floors to get from front half to raised back half of house as well as a normal staircase in centre of house. The back of upstairs will have slightly compromised height but be only two large bedrooms so fine. The layout works well on paper and makes the house a bit more "interesting". I intend to knock down a sunroom to the front and extend forward so creating a whole new front facing wall to the house so door and windows will all be at correct height and in proportion to the aspect.
Its quite a big job but I think financially viable because a fairly decent sea view is available upstairs and neighbours with similar donor properties have proved its worthiness albeit not by lowering the ground floor substantially first.
I will do much of the work before up to truss and roof work so at first glance it looks a fairly straight forward process to me of digging out and then laying a dpm and lapping up the 6 or 7 courses i can lower by to the existing dpc and then laying an insulated screed floor as normal. However would appreciate any guidance or advice or anything to look out for in lowering the floor height? Can I dig below the top of the footings to get my hardcore level in as low as poss so that my finished floor height is perhaps just above footings or is this a no no? I imagine the cavity below the dpc is full of lean mix so poor heat retention so was going to place that thin high performance silvery insulation roll to the inside of the wall behind the newly laid dpm. Does that sound ok and how do you bond these layers both to the wall bearing in mind I will need to plaster over all this too?
Its quite a big job but I think financially viable because a fairly decent sea view is available upstairs and neighbours with similar donor properties have proved its worthiness albeit not by lowering the ground floor substantially first.
I will do much of the work before up to truss and roof work so at first glance it looks a fairly straight forward process to me of digging out and then laying a dpm and lapping up the 6 or 7 courses i can lower by to the existing dpc and then laying an insulated screed floor as normal. However would appreciate any guidance or advice or anything to look out for in lowering the floor height? Can I dig below the top of the footings to get my hardcore level in as low as poss so that my finished floor height is perhaps just above footings or is this a no no? I imagine the cavity below the dpc is full of lean mix so poor heat retention so was going to place that thin high performance silvery insulation roll to the inside of the wall behind the newly laid dpm. Does that sound ok and how do you bond these layers both to the wall bearing in mind I will need to plaster over all this too?
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