Depending on the purpose of the attic space, different materials are used for its equipment. If it will be used as a seasonal one, it can be built for recreation in the summer from a lighter material - wooden beams. And if you plan to live year-round in more severe climatic places, you need to make it capital, with reliable thermal insulation.
How to build an attic with your own hands: step by step instructions
To build a house, starting from scratch, you need to have certain knowledge, study the step-by-step instructions, which clearly indicate the rules for building your house. The first guide in the construction of an attic is a building plan, which contains all the data on how to build an attic, which comes in several types. This is a design with a release outside the wall of the house. Or which will be equipped in the attic space under the roof.
The first view with a release outside the front wall requires the creation of a frame on the logs. To do this, the logs of the longitudinal beam are produced several meters beyond the boundaries of the fronthouse walls. For the strapping beam, wooden beams with a section of 50 x 150 cm are used. For more reliable fastening of the hanging beams, slopes based on the frame of the load-bearing wall can be used.
If a brick or concrete block house is being built, then ready-made concrete beams can also be used as a log or they can be poured with your own hands. To fill the strapping beam, formwork is made of boards with reinforcement with thick reinforcement or a welded reinforcing cage. If the outlet is large (several meters), support poles made of a metal pipe or ready-made concrete poles are installed for additional fastening.
You can build an attic with your own hands on the second or third floor of a building in an old, used house, but for this you need to reconstruct the attic space. After the construction of the first floor, the creation of a frame of the second level with an attic begins. The first step is to install the truss frame in accordance with the documentation. The second step in the attic device is the installation of a strapping beam.
Rafter system
Third step. There is no difficulty in how to build an attic. It just takes practice here. Further construction continues with the installation of longitudinal beams of the ceiling part of the room, which are installed on wooden beams and fastened with transverse beams. After mounting the frame, the truss system is laid.
The rafters are installed with their "heels" on the strapping beam, placed onlongitudinal girders of the ceiling frame and are fastened at their ends with cut-out "paws" and additional fasteners. All joints of rafters with joists are strengthened in several ways, with nails and metal corners.
The fourth step. The next question in how to build an attic will be the process of leveling the bevels of the front wall and strengthening the gable overhangs with rungs. Wooden bars are used as the latter.
Waterproofing
The fifth step. For laying waterproofing, vapor barrier and insulation, the first layer of battens is nailed to the rafter system and a waterproof layer is installed. Depending on what material will be used for insulation, the distance between the first layer of slats is adjusted to the dimensions of the insulation. After laying the waterproofing, a second layer of battens is applied, a counter-lattice, which will create a ventilation gap between the roofing material and the waterproofing film. A layer of thermal insulation is laid on the inside, covered with a vapor barrier film and a rough cladding is made.
Vapor barrier and attic insulation
Insulation of any roof is made from the inside. As it can be used different heat-insulating materials. It is best, of course, to use polystyrene foam and mineral wool insulation packages that are installed in the openings of the rafter system, under the waterproofing layer.
Insulation bags are laid all over the roof and coveredvapor barrier film that protects the insulation from indoor fumes. Wooden slats insulating packages are strengthened to the truss system. On top of the vapor barrier film, lining is made with clapboard or a wooden board. If the roof is parallel to the walls of the attic, then additional polystyrene foam bags can be used for insulation. Thus, the "pie" of the roof of the attic space consists of several layers.
Crate
The sixth step. In how to build a roof under the attic, there are many questions about what shape it should have: gable or hipped. It also depends on the material and design. The preparatory work for the coating includes the crate, waterproofing and vapor barrier.
The crate is made in relation to the coating material. If it is carried out with soft polystyrene or bituminous materials, then a continuous crate with a board with a section of 25 mm is needed. In the case when a metal tile is used for coating, the sheathing is made of boards or bars with a section of 25-30 mm. The pitch of the crate depends on the dimensions of the sheets used. Usually, instructions for the roofing material give instructions regarding the distance in the crate. Its step also depends on the slope of the roof slope and the length of the protrusion of the sheet beyond the first bar.
The steeper the slope, the greater the distance between the laths of the crate. It is best to perform it with long strips so that there are the least number of connections. The distance betweenthe first eaves and the second board of the crate should be 50 mm smaller than the others. The distance between the rest of the covering strips is 350-450 mm, depending on the profile of the roofing sheet.
Wall insulation
For those who do not know how to build an attic with their own hands, a photo with step-by-step instructions can be useful when building such houses.
Before coating, a cornice strip or brackets are nailed to the lower lath of the crate, to which the cornice gutter will be attached. Usually, in small houses, the attic is arranged directly under the roof. And if you plan to live year-round, then of course, you need to take care of reliable insulation of both the roof and walls.
In the photo of the built houses with an attic, you can see that mineral wool insulation packages are used as thermal insulation of the roofing "pie", which are laid from the inside of the roof into the lathing openings.
Arrangement of the attic room
For small houses, the attic is a good option for expanding living space. In order to make the room suitable for living all year round, both in summer and winter, it should be equipped with modern insulation and waterproofing technologies. It is clear that the roof of the house is used as an attic ceiling. To do this, you need to protect the room from heat or cold, penetrating mainly through it.
Modern polymeric fibrous insulation materials are used for this. Thermal insulation packages are installed in openingsbetween the rafters. If the latter are not deep enough for the packages, wooden slats are additionally attached to them. To create a high-quality thermal cushion around the entire perimeter, the insulation layer must be protected on both sides with a waterproofing and vapor barrier film. Not only how to build an attic with your own hands, the photo makes it possible to understand, but also how to give it a residential look. This will require special materials.
To build an attic, a photo can be a good instruction, but when arranging it, an important element is the dry sheathing of the room using plasterboard or chipboard. With their help, you can create not only a stable microclimate, but also provide the room with all kinds of partitions and niches that can be used as a dressing room.
Multi-pitched attic roof
Modern construction has a wide variety of projects of houses, cottages and mansions that go beyond the usual rectangular framework. Many two-, three-, and four-story houses may have a polygonal shape. And of course, for an extraordinary house, the same roof is required. In most cases, near a polygonal house, it is built as a multi-pitched or hipped roof. A multi-pitched roof has a more complex structure than a simple gable roof.
The construction of a multi-pitched or hipped roof requires both knowledge and skills, since the truss frame must have a symmetrical proportion, to create which you need to have an idea of \u200b\u200battaching each rafter to the maindiagonal beams, which create the construction of a hipped roof, consisting of triangular slopes.
The answer to the question of how to build an attic from a bar with a pitched roof is easy to find. Such a design can have a multi-pitched or tented shape, which, as a rule, has a small angle of inclination, up to 50 degrees.
Pitched roofs have many positive aspects. They can withstand the biggest hurricane winds. The only drawback of such buildings is the limitation of the attic space. In the construction of a multi-pitched roof, the main elements are angular diagonal rafters that divide the roof plane into slopes. All other elements are attached to the main diagonal beams, so they must have additional attachment points to both the base and the ridge.
Roof windows
Building an attic has a number of advantages. With the expansion of living space under one roof, the number of rooms for living in the house increases. The entire upper part of the building is also insulated. Most owners build an attic for the entire attic area of \u200b\u200bthe house, which significantly increases the load on its foundation. Therefore, if the house was designed without it and it is being completed to an already erected building, then for the arrangement you need to use lightweight materials that will not create a large load on the foundation of the building.
How to build an attic so that you can live in winter? To do this, it is best to choose modern materials for insulation,and for wall cladding. These are expanded polystyrene fibrous waterproofing packages and lining. There are several options for window arrangement.
Skylights can be installed in the roof itself along an inclined surface and be made as cut-out superstructure openings. Modern PVC bags or lightweight aluminum profiles are used in any window design.
Depending on the size of the rooms, one of them has a single window on the bright sunny side, which is arranged between the rafters of the roof frame of the building.
If the truss frame has too narrow openings, then several single-frame opening windows should be installed, which will become not only a light transmission system, but also a ventilation mechanism with which it will be possible to ventilate attic spaces both in summer and winter.
