Hip to Gable Loft Conversions: How-to Guide for Adding Extra Space

With the hip to gable loft conversion you will be able to handle the property with a hipped roof which troubles with the loft space’s internal headroom even if it is spacious. 

Most roofs of houses are built in a shape of an A which is comprised of a pair of roof slopes that filled with an end wall having a triangular gable. Still, there are lots of properties that are either bungalows or semi-detached homes built back in 1930s that have the problematic pyramid shaped roofs while having additional sloping roofs instead of having gable ends. 

By opting for a hip to gable loft conversion, one can extend the available headroom within the grounds of building regulations for making better use of the flooring space of your loft. 

What is actually a Hip to Gable Loft Conversion? 

The hip to gable loft conversion is the option where a property’s hipped roof is used to effectively shrink the useable flooring area. This is a challenging thing as the problem arises when you need to position a staircase. 

While there is certain leeway allowed within building regulations for loft stairs, one still needs to have headroom of around 1.9 meters above the staircase’s middle flight so that the people entering the loft do not hit their heads. 

Location for the new loft stairs mostly depend on factors like layout of the floor underneath but it can be positioned directly above the main flight to offer space saving. 

With properties having dual pitched roofs, they usually have lots of headroom in their loft so accommodating stairs easily. But when the loft conversion is carried for a hipped roof, it causes issues. 

How much does it Cost for a Hip to Gable Loft Conversion? 

The construction work involved in the construction of a hip to gable loft conversion is usually quite intensive speaking in terms of both materials and manpower. 

Most of the roof tiles and their underlay is to be stripped off the roof before the cutting the timber structure to remove the already present slope of the hipped roof. The end wall is then constructed for forming the new gable while remaining slopes are extended towards the newly made gable for reclaiming the full headspace in-between. 

Other than this, one needs to install following items while complying the approved drawings and calculations of a structural engineer.

  • new rafters 
  • battens 
  • underlay 
  • matching tiling 
  • steel ridge beam 

Speaking all of this in terms of cost, the complexity of a hip to gable loft conversion can become quite expensive. The average cost for a hip to gable loft conversion london depending on the specification and size is around 50000 pounds. 

Costs per square meter often vary widely but one can look up to a price range for a new loft to be somewhere in between 1600 to 2500 pounds per square meter. 

Does one require Planning permissions for hip to gable loft conversion?

It is most likely that a hip to gable loft conversion requires planning permissions. 

Most of the loft conversions are done as PD (permitted Development) does not require a former application for planning. Even some bulky dormers are permissible when carried out on the rear end of a property. 

But when it comes to loft conversion that extends in a way to offer a prominent front or have side elevations, it will require for planning permission. 

In dormer loft conversion, roof does not exceed 50 cubic meters for a terraced house which includes the existing extensions for a roof. However, in the case of hip to gable loft conversion, these limits are exceeded and cause prominent visual impact on one’s property as well as often appear bulky. 

Alternative for hip to gable loft conversion:-

A hipped roof causes constraint in headroom available but one can always consider alternative routes for this. One of the obvious and simplest solutions is to move the staircase to an area with lots of headroom. The problem with this is that it leads to sacrificing quite a bit of liveable loft space along with carving out the bedroom below it. Visit here 

Another method is to raise the height for the obstructing sloping roof by adding in a new dormer window. Dormers are available in lots of different sizes and shapes but often large sized box dormers are used for loft conversions for creating lots of headroom inside. 

Still, all of these alternative options depend on the dimensions of the roofing space that you are looking to convert. In some of the cases, a little dormer or a simpler roof window might all be needed for creating extra headroom.

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