If you are determined to actively use the attic, most likely you will have to make a hatch in the attic. In the past, in the villages this task was dealt with very simply - it was enough to use a ladder, but for a modern person such a dubious method can hardly be called suitable. Definitely, you will need a convenient hole from the inside of the house, and not from the outside, as was previously practiced. There are ready-made solutions on sale, but you still have to deal with their installation yourself, and the dimensions of the structure may not go. This article will discuss how to make the roof of the house inhabited.
Buy or craft?
Those who plan to buy a finished product can use the instructions for installing it, which will also be given in this article, and those who want to make a convenient hatch to the attic with their own hands will be interested in complete information about the process that we offer for reading. So, here are some important nuances that will come in handy:
- choose a place for the aperture so that you do not hit your head on the rafters or the roof at the time of going up;
- under the beams of overlap, the entrance to the roof of the house is not built;
- if the upper floor is still not insulated, you will have to make insulation;
- the opening must be strengthened. For wooden structures, wooden beams are suitable, and in concrete houses, reinforcement is carried out with metal corners;
- it is necessary to provide free space under the hatch for a retractable ladder.
In the event that you will do the hatch together with the stairs yourself, do not be too lazy to carefully study all the stages of the process, then you will not encounter difficulties in the work, and it will not seem difficult to you.
Manufacturing steps
Before you make a hatch to the attic, you need to draw up drawings on which all the necessary measurements and parameters are marked: the thickness of the floor, the dimensions of the lid and the opening that you will be sawing. Note that insulated rooms can be equipped with a conventional cover, while cold rooms will require additional thermal insulation. It doesn’t matter how you draw up the diagram - handwritten on paper or in a special computer program, the main thing is to take into account all the necessary dimensions. When the scheme is drawn up, you can proceed to the practical side of the issue, as well as prepare tools for work.
Aperture cutting
If during the construction phase of the house a roof hole was not provided, you will have to cut it yourself. Of course, if there is already such a hole for installing the door, this stage of work is skipped.
First, marking is carried out with the expectation that the hole should be 5-6 cm larger than the dimensions of the hatch frame. In the future, the gap will help compensate for the thickness of the boards from which the frame will be made. The material from a sawed piece of the ceiling can be used to cover the lid, of course, if it has a normal aesthetic appearance.
Opening frame assembly
Here we need boards with a thickness of 2 - 3 cm, it is precisely this caliber that will make the foundation strong. The frame may have a round or square shape. The second option provides mandatory directness of all angles. The dimensions of the frame 60X120 cm can be considered standard, and such dimensions are suitable for the vast majority of homeowners. You are guided by personal preferences and dimensions of the opening, you might want to increase the hole on the roof of the house, but we do not recommend making it smaller. After assembly, the frame is mounted on its seat in the ceiling opening.
Master cover
As mentioned earlier, the most common cover can be collected from the cut-off remnants of the overlap, which were formed as a result of cutting the opening. The assembled door must be reinforced on the back with a cross bar. Then it must be fixed at the selected location with loops located on the long or short side of the cover. Take a look at which side it will be more convenient for you to open the door, and only then proceed to fix it on the frame. Also consider how the hatch should open to the roof of the house, inside or outside the room.
We are engaged in insulation and decoration
The issue of insulation, as we said earlier, will completely depend on the degree of thermal insulation of the upper floor. An insulated floor can do with an elementary layer of insulation, but we recommend that you pay attention to sound insulation. Naturally, a cold room needs high-quality large-scale insulation coating. To do this, it is necessary to lay a layer of vapor barrier membrane and a layer of insulation material according to the standard scheme for such a process. At the last stage, you need to make exterior decoration.
As you already understood, the simplest hatch leading to the roof of the house is mounted in this way. More complex solutions include a design with a retractable ladder. The installation process here is carried out according to a similar scheme with only a few differences.
Sophisticated Designs
The attic hatch can be equipped with a stationary staircase. Here, work also begins with the cutting of the opening. The further course of the process depends on which construction you have chosen, and in what order you will make it. Immediately make a reservation that the work of assembling and installing a hatch with a ladder in this case will be somewhat more complicated than in the option considered above. Be sure to ensure that all sizes of interacting elements match:
- retractable stairs;
- doors;
- aperture;
- ceiling thickness.
You can measure all these parameters yourself or remove from the purchased product if you do not make it yourself. In this case, the lid should have a space accommodating the longest part of the retractable ladder in the assembled position.
Also remember that the weight of the ladder must be kept with a cover with a margin, otherwise breakage, and in the worst case, injury, cannot be avoided. We must not forget about the reliable latch, which firmly holds the structure in the frame of the ceiling opening.
All the processes that we mentioned are provided schematically, but if you decide to build the hatch in the attic yourself, you do not need more detailed information, because certain skills you most likely have, but general recommendations with illustrations will not hurt anyone. Anyone who buys a ready-made hatch for access to the roof of the house can use the installation instructions, which must be attached to the product.