Everyone can do with
more storage space, and one place we don't often
think about is up on the roof. So if your roof has
some usable space or you've got an existing attic
that's difficult to access, then a set of
pull-down attic stairs are the perfect way for you to
safely get into your roof area. You can buy attic
stairs off the shelf, and with a little
bit of help, I'll show you how you
can install them. Now, one of the first
things I have to do is establish which model
attic stair I'm going to use. So the first thing I have today
is measure my stud height. Now, I've got a 2.7 stud
height, so the next thing I have to work out
is what I'm going to be using the stair for. Now, I'm only going to be using
them for an occasional storage, so this is the model I'm after. Now, the next thing
I need to work out is exactly whereabouts
in the ceiling I'm going to install it. So I figure this is
quite a good space, right about here somewhere. It's pretty close to the door. Nice and easy for me to access. So what I need to do is
jump up in the ceiling and make sure there's
no structural members that I'm going to cut through. So just as a reference
point, I know I've got some lights there. So I'm going to get
up on the ceiling and have a look to see
if everything's OK for me to cut that ceiling out. Now, when working in the
ceiling, always be careful. Only stand on the trusses
or ceiling battens, and never stand on
the plasterboard. So here's my light footing
that we saw downstairs. So that's a good
reference point. Now, I've got a truss
right on the side of that, so I could attach to
that, if I need to. Now, over here, I can also
see that's my wall downstairs. So I've got plenty of room
in between these two trusses for downstairs. So what I'm going to do is just
frame out in between these two. Everyone's roof spaces
will be different. If you're not sure which parts
of the roof are structural and what you can or
can't cut through, it's a good idea to
get a licensed building practitioner to advise you. Now, a couple of
things you should note before you start
cutting into your ceiling. You do want to be in the
highest part of your ceiling. So what that means is if you
were to come up the stairs, you don't want to bang your
head on the roof above you. So being in the highest part
is a really, really good tip. So what I'm going to do now is
give myself a reference point for downstairs. So to do that, I've got a
nice long drill bit here. It's about a 6 mil drill bit. And all I'm going to do
is drill down hard next to the side of our
truss, because I know that's going to be
my first reference point. Now, just before
we crack on, we're definitely not going to be
cutting through our trusses or rafters, but what
we can cut through is our ceiling
battens, these members here, because these
are nonstructural. OK. Time for me to drill
our reference points. Be aware of any wires or pipes. And if you need to
get them removed to accommodate
your stairs, you'll need an electrician or
plumber to do that for you. Now, I've got my
two reference points from the holes I
drilled from upstairs. Now, just before
I chop out, I need to know exactly how much
I'm going to chop out. So as per my instructions in the
pack, I'm using the R28 model. So on the chart
here, it says that I need a 1370 by 650 opening. Now, here's just
a little heads up. You just want to make
sure that you've actually got enough landing space. So that's the
distance from where the ladder starts from to
where it lands on the ground. So we've actually got a
landing space of 1180. So you want at least half
a meter in front of it distance for you to access
the front of the stairs. Now, up in the ceiling,
I know that I've got a ceiling batten that runs
right next to my hole here. So I'm going to utilize that
as a solid fixing point. So I'm going to start
my 1370 from that hole. And I know I've got plenty
of head room upstairs. So I can come back. I've just got to mark 1370. So I've just got a ruler. Point between those two marks. Now, I'm just going
to use my rafter square to give me 90 degrees. If you don't have
a rafter square, you could use the edge
of a custom wood sheet on plywood sheet
that's 90 degrees. Now, I'll just mark my 650 wide. So I just mark 650
down this end as well. Now, just square
that off our line, and transfer that
mark all the way down. Cool! She's all marked out. Now, the next thing
is cutting it out. Now, we're just about ready
to cut into the ceiling. So one of the best tools you can
use for this is the multi-tool. Now, I've got a jib
cutting blade on there. Now all I'm going to do is
just go the bare minimum so it's just throw the jib only. We can cut out all our
ceiling battens later. Righty-oh. All I have to do now is
remove my plasterboard. Now, by using the
multi-tool, I just made sure that I
was only cutting through the plasterboard
and nothing else. So what I'm going
to do now is just use a handsaw and cut threw
all our rafter battens. And if you're not sure what to
cut, always check with an LBP first. Now, the sides of my attic
stair are 90 millimeters high. So I'm going to be flush with
the bottom of the ceiling, and it's got to come
up 90 mil from there. So I can fix into the
bottom cord of this truss. But as you can see, I also
need to fill in the gaps here just to ensure I've
got a complete solid fixing. So we're also going to have
to have solid fixing in between our two trusses. Side that will be
a 4 by 2 sitting on the top of that ceiling
batten running across from there, also running on the
top of these ceiling battens, and across on that end,
as well as filling in between these battens as well. So I've just got to slip
on my ceiling batten. And just to make it nice
and easy for myself, I'm just going to
screw those in place using some 75 mil square drives. Now, once I'm up
here, I'm just going to fix our plasterboard
to our new nogs, and doing that, I've got
some 32 mil drywall screws. Cool! Now all I need to do is frame
out the same on this side. What I'm doing here is building
a solid frame for the attic stairs to attach to. And there you go, a nice solid
frame to take our stairs. Now, our frame's all
ready to take our stairs. What I have to do is prep
these stairs a little bit before they can go in. So the prep work I have
to do is pre-drilling some holes on the sides, and
also attaching our screw eye So as per our
instructions, I have to come in 160
millimeters from each end. Now, I've already got some holes
pre-drilled on the ends here. So we don't have to
worry about that. So I've just got to set my set
square to the same distance. That's 25 millimeters down. So I'm just going
to mark that around. And I'll just repeat the
same down the other end. Now, I'll just mark my 160,
and same for the other end. So I'm just going to
pre-drill a 5 mil hole. Beauty. Now, all I have to do is
the same for the other side. Right. The next thing we
have to do is just pre-drill a hole in our stairs
to take our little hook eye. Now, as per our
instructions in the pack, we're going to
drill a hole that's in line with the
back end of screws, and just make sure that
it's in the center. Now, there's just
one last thing I have to do before I install
the stairs in the hole. I've made these little
cleats here to help me out, to hold the stairs just
temporarily in place. So what these are
going to do, I'm going to screw these
to our frame work. They're just going
to sit like that. I'll screw them up,
and they'll just spin around and hold our stair. So I'm going to attach
these about 150 millimeters in on the sides here, and then
about 200 mil up on this end here. Now, in our
instructions, it shows us using a cleat that attaches
to the ceiling on either end for our attic stair to sit on. That's totally fine. You can do it that way. However, attaching
these cleats is just going to make the
job a lot easier. Beauty. Now we're ready to
install our stairs. Now, as you can see, I've asked
a mate around to help me out. Righty-oh. So the next thing I have to
do is pull the stair down. And we're going to start
fixing in from hinge end first. Now, part of our kit, we've
already got these screws. So I'm going to attach
these in the back plate first on the hinge end. So now I just have to put
my screws in on the sides. I'm going to start
with the end first, and I'm just going to make sure
that it's still sitting hard on our cleat so we're flush
with the bottom of the ceiling. Now, we're not
going to screw that in tight, because we want to
use those screws as adjustment later. Cool! Now we can remove cleats. Righty-oh. Now, all we have to do is
shut our unit and have a look. OK. Now, as you can see, I've
screwed this side in way too far. So I need to release
that screw a little bit, and move that one over. So what we're after
is a parallel line from the back edge of our frame
up against our custom wood sheeting. So we have to release
this first screw. And we'll just tighten
up this side here. That will allow the
frame to move over. Now, just keep
adjusting the screws until you're happy with the fit. We'll take that a
little bit more. OK. Carry looking nice and square
and parallel with that side. So one last thing I have to
do is just cut some packers that fit between our frame
and our 4 by 2 timber frame. So to do that, I've
just got to measure that gap between our space. OK. So I've got 12
millimeters there, and I've got 4
millimeters down here. OK. All my packers are cut. Now, I've just got to
slide them in there. It's quite a nice
little tight fit. So now that we've
got our packers in, I just want to make sure that
the packers actually haven't pushed it back out of square. So it's just one last
quick little check. Yep. That's looking
absolutely fantastic. So what I will do is
just tweak those screws just a tiny little bit
just to hold the packers in extra tight. The next thing we want to do
is cut these stairs to length. So we'll just fold them out. Now, these have been
made a little bit longer on the bottom. So if I lay those out, you can
see it's not a straight line. So what we do is fold that back. We take a straight
edge or long level. We've just got to sit
that on our stairs and project that line all
the way down onto the floor. So we'll just mark on the
floor exactly where they land. So I just mark
this side as well. Now, what I'm going
to do is just mark the back of the straight
edge, and I'm just going to use that for
our length on our stair. So I'm just going
to mark that side. That will be
indicating the right. And I'll just check
to see if it's the same length
on our other side. And we're exactly
the same lengths. Now I can use that mark to
transfer onto our bottom step. So before I do
that, I'm just going to unscrew that bottom
step so we can cut it off. Now, I'm going to
have to cut an angle on the bottom of these steps. So what I'm going to do, I
could use a sliding bevil, but more than likely, most
people won't have one of those. So what I'm going to do is put
the back point of our steps on our pencil mark
that's on the concrete. And I'm just going to
rest those on the stairs. And just take-- you can use a
block of timber, or anything. So all I'm doing is scribing
the angle of the floor onto our stairs. Now, I'll take that. I've got my length. So I'll put that flush on there. That's the length I'm mark
with out straight edge. Mark that on both sides. So all I have to do now
is transfer that angle up to that marked parallel. So an easy way to
do that is just by measuring that distance. 106. 106. And we just rule a line. So I'll just do that the
same on the other leg, and chop it off with a handsaw. Now, just to finish
that off, I'm just going to use
my block plane, and just take those
sharp edges off. Now, that's for two reasons. One is to stop it chipping when
it lands hard on the floor. And it's just going
to also give it a nice edge for when we paint
the stairs later on, if you want to. So I'm just putting
a slight bevel on the front part of
our steps as well. That's also going to help
to stop it splitting when it lands hard on the concrete. Lovely! Now, all we have to do is attach
it back to our main stairs. To tidy this up,
I've finished it off with an architrave around it. Right. That's the job done. These set of stairs
have helped open up an otherwise unused
attic space for storage and given us a safe
way to get up there.
