new home-turning attic into a managable place

[davebelcher]

hey guys,

im new to this forum as of today as ive come for some help if thats ok,
i recently moved into my own first house wit the misses some weeks ago and am happy with the outcome,first few days were great until i started noticing small things that werent working to there full, first of the heating.....i found i was having to put my heating on full time daily just so i could sit and watch tv without blowing condensation smoke rings out of my arse.
that day i popped into the attic to check what was there and found bugger all insulation, hmm found the problem.....anyways after buying a bulk batch and literally doing the full attic with around 300mm of the itchy stuff i noticed the difference it made.i didnt stop there though...i decided to board the full lot out with 8x4 tung and groove? chipboard and boarded the attic,hmm am getting warmer by the day.i then decided to insulate my roof but found it wasnt as cheap as id of liked it to be! celatex roof sheets.... i manged to grab a decent deal on ebay and got 10 sheets of 8x4 50mm stuff and got on with it.now its looking great, yesturday i decided to cover the roof with 5.5mm plywood, after a full day at only doing 1 section of the 3 i was nackered.who ever built this house must of been wanting to get home quick as the structure was all over the place lol it wasnt exactly plumb in my eyes.i managed to overcome that lot and all was good. i sit back -shout the misses to put the kettle on and look back at my hard graft.RESULT!

as this floor space it now warm as ever and measuring around 40ft long by 10ft width ive decided i want to turn this into a spare room for my reptiles and also belt a few tunes from my turntables. my question now is how can i install electric up there hard wired instead of having to trail extension cables up there which isnt in my eyes good.

ive found a big bulky white wire, im guessing its the 30amp feed to my electric shower?
is it possible to piggy back some points from this wire,im not 1 for trying now and regretting it later as theres no second chances with electrics.

if so what are my options and how would i go about it all.

thanks for your time and efforts in advance, ill look forward to hearing your comments.

Dave.

 

[MarkieSparkie]

Hi Dave, Welcome to the forum. You seem to confident with the DIY works in the attic, but realise your limitations with electrics, therefore you need the services of a professional electrician. If you post your location, one of the guys on here who is based in your area will be able to sort things out for you.

 

[pjcomp]

Dave, short answer is no, you can't use the shower cable (unless you remove the shower). Probably the only othe rcabling you'll have in the loft will be lighting for the upstairs lights. What you need to get up there is something big enough to hang a few sockets on. Liek Markie said, get someone in who can recognisse what you've got and advise you best on how to get from there to where you want to be.

PJ

 

[telectrix]

2 spot on posts of advice there, mate. the shower cable is designed and installed to power tour shower. full stop. witrhout seeing the job, i would imagine a new circuit for sockets and lights would be the best wasy forward.

 

[Engineer54]

Sounds to me like you have surrounded the existing lighting cables and shower cable in your new insulation material. Unfortunately for you, that has significantly reduced there current carrying ability. What is it they say, for every action there is a re-action, (or something like that).

So how old would you say the wiring is in your new home? Is it grey or white PVC, or black rubber cables that you have covered with insulation??

 

[telectrix]

well at least his attic will be warm.

 

[topquark]

Agree with the all the above ^^^^^. You will also need either a staircase (or ladder access incorporating two handrails) for it to be building regs compliant as habitable space. If you're having electrics up there you'll also want a smoke alarm added.

Building regs would also require that you convert your other floors doors to fire doors when adding a third floor