Loft
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Muswell Hill roofs are gables, hips and party wall upstands seen from sloping streets, so a loft room here is usually won at the back and planned with the terrace in view.
Haringey's 2008 appraisal says front dormers should be avoided where they are not part of a street's character, and asks for care with rear dormers wherever the backs of houses are visible from neighbouring roads.
We begin a Muswell Hill loft on the pavement and at the bottom of the garden, checking what passers-by and neighbours will see before a single room is sketched.
Source: Haringey Council: Muswell Hill Conservation Area Character Appraisal (Conservation Area No. 3, adopted 11 February 2008)
Edwardian roofs: gables, hips and upstands
On Queens Avenue the paired houses are symmetrical about the party wall, with two storey gabled projections, central chimneys and mostly slate roofs.
Across the Collins avenues the roofline repeats a brick upstand at each party wall, with chimneys usually standing between the pairs.
Corner houses turn the junctions with circular bays, turrets and towers, which leaves an awkward roof shape to work within.
Those upstands and chimneys are the first things we record, because a dormer has to sit between them rather than cut across them.
Source: Haringey Council: Muswell Hill Conservation Area Character Appraisal (Conservation Area No. 3, adopted 11 February 2008)
Why the front slope stays as built
The appraisal records front dormers added or enlarged on terraces in some places, and calls them prominent and disruptive unless they belong to the original design.
Grand Avenue shows both sides of this: Nos 1 to 3 were built with wide dormers, while added front dormers elsewhere stand out in the terrace.
Haringey's housing policy restricts roof extensions to the rear, sized to look subordinate, and admits a front dormer only where such dormers are already established locally.
On Coniston Road, the appraisal singles out the prominent dormer on No 25 as detracting from the street.
Sources: Haringey Council: Muswell Hill Conservation Area Character Appraisal (Conservation Area No. 3, adopted 11 February 2008), Haringey Council: Development Management DPD (Haringey Local Plan, adopted July 2017)
Rear dormers where the backs are on view
Many of the street layouts open views, at junctions, onto the plainer and more utilitarian backs of houses.
From Dukes Avenue, for instance, the yellow brick backs of Elms Avenue and Methuen Park are open to view, so anything added to them would be prominent.
A rear dormer that keeps below the ridge, sits in from the party walls and is clad to suit the slope looks settled from a neighbouring street as well as from the garden.
We draw the dormer's cheeks and its window to the proportions of the sashes below, so the back of the house still reads as one design.
Source: Haringey Council: Muswell Hill Conservation Area Character Appraisal (Conservation Area No. 3, adopted 11 February 2008)
Lofts on sloping streets
Where the land slopes, Haringey's appraisal notes that roofs are prominent in views along the streets.
Above Grand Avenue the avenues run downhill towards it, and Alexandra Park Road drops from west to east, so each house on these streets is set a step lower than its neighbour.
Along Dukes Avenue the roofs, chimneys and gables are prominent in views, with Alexandra Palace seen from the brows of its hills.
On a stepped terrace each roof is set against the next, so we draw the neighbours' roofs on our elevations and keep the new work below the line they make.
Source: Haringey Council: Muswell Hill Conservation Area Character Appraisal (Conservation Area No. 3, adopted 11 February 2008)
Roof changes the appraisal singles out
At No 90 Rosebery Road an attic was made by raising the gable on the Dukes Avenue side for a full-width dormer, which the appraisal calls prominent.
It also names the dormer at No 59 Dukes Avenue as overly prominent, and the side dormer at No 51 and side mansard at No 65 Alexandra Park Road as bulky.
These are useful cautions rather than rules: they show where a loft has been judged too large for its street, and we keep them in mind when sizing a dormer.
Source: Haringey Council: Muswell Hill Conservation Area Character Appraisal (Conservation Area No. 3, adopted 11 February 2008)
Rear dormer, hip to gable or rooflights
In a Haringey conservation area, any addition to or alteration of a house roof is outside permitted development and goes through a planning application.
So do rooflights that would stand more than 150mm proud of the slope, which is why conservation rooflights are laid flush.
A flat-roofed rear dormer gives the most standing room. A dormer with a small pitched roof sits more quietly on a slate slope, and on a hipped semi the side hip can be built up into a gable to carry a wider rear dormer.
Where the roof already has enough height, rooflights alone may give a study or a box room without changing the shape of the roof at all.
Source: Haringey Council: Works that need planning permission (conservation areas)
Houses built with an attic storey
Edmondson's Queens Avenue houses went up with an attic floor above their two main storeys, lit by gables and dormers.
In the west section of Hillfield Park the houses have an attic storey with a large dormer in a slate mansard, often shaped as a canted bay.
Alexandra Park Road's long terrace at Nos 36 to 86 was built as paired houses with a third storey tucked into the slate roof.
Where an attic already exists, the work is more often a refit than a conversion: new insulation, a proper stair and better rooms inside the existing roof.
Source: Haringey Council: Muswell Hill Conservation Area Character Appraisal (Conservation Area No. 3, adopted 11 February 2008)
Laying out the loft room
The bed goes where the ceiling is highest, and a shower room sits close to the existing soil stack so its waste can fall without a pump.
Low eaves become fitted drawers and cupboards, and a desk often fits under a rooflight where the headroom would not suit anything else.
Windows in a rear dormer are placed for the view, so that where the ground falls away the dormer frames the distance rather than the next roof.
Roofs on the Rookfield Estate
On Rookfield Avenue, Rookfield Close, The Chine, The Court and the other streets the Rookfield direction names, its controls apply.
Its first item brings enlargements, improvements and other alterations to houses within planning control.
On those streets we treat every roof change as a planning application from the outset.
Source: Haringey Council: Development Management DPD (Haringey Local Plan, adopted July 2017)
Building regulations for a loft room
A loft or attic needs building regulations approval to become liveable space, the Planning Portal confirms.
Existing loft joists tie the roof together and hold the ceiling below; they were not designed to carry a room.
New joists that bear on an existing wall need that wall to continue down to a foundation or to be given intermediate support.
Loft rooms are reached by a new stair, not a pull-down ladder, and in a two-storey house the escape route gets fire-resisting doors and smoke alarms wired to the mains and linked on each level.
Sources: Planning Portal: Is building regulations approval needed for a loft conversion?, Planning Portal: Loft conversion, building regulations: existing walls and foundations, Planning Portal: Loft conversion, building regulations: stairs, Planning Portal: Loft conversion, building regulations: fire safety
Party walls and the house next door
Before steel goes into a party wall, or the wall is built up, or a chimney taken off it, the adjoining owner has to be given notice.
If the neighbour does not agree, one or two surveyors write down the work, how and when it will be done and who pays.
Haringey's appraisal reminds owners that permitted development is only a grant of planning permission, leaving Building Regulations and the Party Wall Act 1996 to be dealt with separately.
Sources: GOV.UK: Party walls and building work, Haringey Council: Muswell Hill Conservation Area Character Appraisal (Conservation Area No. 3, adopted 11 February 2008)
Insulating the new roof
Haringey supports loft insulation in its conservation areas where the fabric is not put at risk, preferring existing voids, reversible fixing and breathable materials like wool.
Its guidance describes older houses as breathing through soft, lime-based plasters and mortars, so new layers should not seal moisture in.
Roof work can disturb bats, and a survey, and sometimes a licence, may be needed first.
Sources: Haringey Council: Energy efficiency in conservation areas, Planning Portal: Loft conversion, protected species
Lofts over flats
A roof extension over a flat always needs planning permission in Haringey, because flats carry no permitted development rights.
For a flat, the building regulations for a loft are similar to a house's but may extend to other parts of the building.
If the roof space belongs to the top flat, we check the lease and the freeholder's view before drawing a dormer.
Sources: Haringey Council: Works that need planning permission (conservation areas), Planning Portal: Is building regulations approval needed for a loft conversion?
A Muswell Hill loft we have worked on
Muswell Hill loft conversion questions
Can I have a front dormer on my Muswell Hill house?
Rarely: Haringey's policy keeps dormers to the rear unless front dormers are already part of the local character.
Does a rear dormer need planning permission in the conservation area?
Yes: Haringey lists roof additions and alterations among the works that need permission in its conservation areas.
Will flush rooflights need permission?
Not if they project no more than 150mm from the slope; beyond that, Haringey requires an application in a conservation area.
Is building regulations approval needed for a loft room?
Yes, a loft cannot become liveable space without it.
Must my neighbour be told about a loft that works on the party wall?
Yes, before cutting into it, raising it or removing a chimney from it.
Are lofts on the Rookfield Estate treated differently?
Yes: its Article 4 direction brings enlargements and alterations to houses under planning control.
Sources: Haringey Council: Development Management DPD (Haringey Local Plan, adopted July 2017), Haringey Council: Works that need planning permission (conservation areas), Planning Portal: Is building regulations approval needed for a loft conversion?, GOV.UK: Party walls and building work
Related pages
Sources
- Haringey Council: Muswell Hill Conservation Area Character Appraisal (Conservation Area No. 3, adopted 11 February 2008)
- Haringey Council: Development Management DPD (Haringey Local Plan, adopted July 2017)
- Haringey Council: Works that need planning permission (conservation areas)
- Planning Portal: Is building regulations approval needed for a loft conversion?
- Planning Portal: Loft conversion, building regulations: existing walls and foundations
- Planning Portal: Loft conversion, building regulations: stairs
- Planning Portal: Loft conversion, building regulations: fire safety
- GOV.UK: Party walls and building work
- Haringey Council: Energy efficiency in conservation areas
- Planning Portal: Loft conversion, protected species
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