Adding a totally not secret staircase to the attic?
Farley McDougal
2 years ago
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cat_ky
2 years agoRelated Discussions
Attic ventilation
Comments (16)Well, idmd, this is just my opinion...I grew up in a one-storey ranch house built in 1958, the roof was hipped but fairly shallow and my dad put insulation batts in the attic, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't up to modern code. This was back in '61 when we moved in, and lived there until '87. We never had moisture problems and had no ridge vent and I don't recall any soffit vents either, although the crawlspace had sliding louvers every six feet or so. My current house is a 1908 two and a half storey frame house with a steep pitched hipped roof with three dormers and two chimneys. It has box gutters, so no soffit vents, and no ridge vent either. There is not one sign of moisture damage in the attic, which is a finished single room which takes up all the territory except for about 5 feet per side for storage under the rafters. The roof is skip-sheathed which meant original roof was slate, but is now asphalt shingles. My guess is that if it has lasted this long without vents, it will last another 100+ years. Old houses, even ones built in the 50s were not so hermetically sealed that moisture was a problem. The biggest problem with moisture from our ranch house was in winter, when ice formed on the aluminum window frames and the marble sills. We tended to put towels on them to catch the water as it melted--this was in the bedrooms, at the far end of the house from the furnace. :)...See MoreAttic Bathroom
Comments (11)Luckily, no - you can't see through the glass. It is heavily frosted and it has a weird pebble texture too. On the other hand, we have glass blocks (two ENTIRE WALLS!!) in our master bath and I call it the Naked Kaleidoscope. I had no idea how clearly you can see through it until one day I was coming up the street toward the house and could quite easily make out the hot pink of my orchid that is on the edge of the shower. Ugh! You can see through the top triangle, theoretically, but once the surround and curtain is installed, that wouldn't be an issue. Plus, I cannot even calculate the angle you would have to stand at in order to catch a glimpse of (maybe) the top of someone's head....See More1908 Farm House Attic Renovation
Comments (7)Hire an architect. And think of which room you want to give up downstairs for the stairs. And measure the clear space from the joists to the peak. If you don’t have around 102”, you wont have room for the internal framing and insulation overhead. You would need to tear off the roof and raise it. You might as well move as do that. Everyhing you touch has to meet today’s Modern building codes. From a big enough electrical panel to pr ovide thecright nunber if AFI circuits, to the HVAC requirements, to the rise and run of the stairs. If it wasn’t designed to be living space from the beginning, it won’t ever be cheap to make into living space now....See MoreSuggestions to adding floor to pole barn attic
Comments (30)"farmer barbie built paper doll level support of low level quality pole barn trusses." So you think a farmer would store farm machinery worth millions under low quality construction? LOL. An equestrian facility 4 miles from me spared no expense building their pole barns (5) for their own horses and others and many thoroughbreds exceed $100K in price. Yep just a bunch of broke posers living around me. I and twelve others live on 160 acres zoned Rural reserve surrounded by subdivisions in a suburb 15 miles from Minneapolis. We've ran off developers over the years wanting our land with huge offers and we refused. We like our land along with our pole barns which are code exempt so we can do as we please, and believe you can take that code and shove it. None of my stereotyped poor rural neighbors live in pole barns or call themselves pros, and don't believe anyone mentioned living in a pole barn. But the OP's 8' x 9' space in his pole barn can certainly be turned into a storage loft will minimal expense or effort....See MoreFarley McDougal
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Farley McDougalOriginal Author