Welcome to our fitting a loft ladder video
This particular video assumes that your loft hatch needs to be recreated or enlarged to
another position in your ceiling. Most loft hatches aren't conducive to fitting a loft ladder directly, so the loft ladder
has to be enlarged and in a lot of cases has to be moved to a new position
Or you have an existing loft hatch that you can get up and down in while you fit your
new loft hatch and your loft ladder. This video works on the assumption that you've created a new loft hatch, you're fitting a
new loft ladder in it and you're using the old hatch to get in and out of the loft
If that's not the case, you will need to install the loft ladder from the floor underneath
the ceiling and the instructions that come with the loft ladder will help you do that
Today we're going to be fitting a Zardew's loft ladder. This particular ladder is 1130, requires a hole 1130mm by 550mm
That's the actual size of the frame that comes for the loft ladder
We suggest you look at the DIY Doctor page on enlarging a loft hatch so that you know
how we've managed to create this hole between the drifts. It's about 20-25mm bigger than the frame
It's important that the frame is allowed to drop in that hole easily, wither it about
a little bit to spread it square and then we pack out the sides and the ends before
we fix it so that we know it's in the hole properly
Always double check before you start, you'll see us drilling a couple of holes in the plasterboard
to see where it comes out downstairs. It's often the case that the joists into which you're going to drop the loft ladder don't
line up with the landing or the place in the room that you think they do
So drill a couple of small holes in the ceiling, you'll see this as I'm talking, to make absolutely
sure that you know downstairs where your loft ladder is going to appear once you've cut
this hole in the ceiling. Once you've cut it, it's a little bit too late
So that's the first thing to check. But you'll watch this installation, I'll explain the installation all the way through for you
The first thing you do, these particular joists are spaced at 600cm which is why the
loft ladder hatch is designed the size it is, so that you've just got down in between
them and then what we have to do is trim out either end of the loft ladder hatch to support
the ends of the loft ladder. So these are new timbers in either end, they were docked in, they were fixed from side
to side. This loft was already previously boarded so we had to cut some of the boarding up to get
this done. But you'll see how we did that on the enlarging the loft hatch page of the DRI website
So we're going to get on with that. The first thing that we're going to do now is having prepared it, having found out where
it's going to come out downstairs, we're going to cut this hole in the ceiling and you'll
see us doing all the operations all the way through and where any explanation is necessary
I'll get it to you. You can see this is a Werner loft ladder from Gargis, maximum drop 2.8m
This is what you get in the box, the ladder, the frame and of course all the fittings and instructions
Double check the frame fits into the opening you've created, make sure there's a gap all
the way around for some movement so you can get the frame square in the opening so that
when you open the ladder it opens square to the ceiling and the floor and drops down absolutely vertically
Make a hole in the centre of the plasterboard so that you can put your hand in and hold
it up while you cut around the perimeter of the patch. So we've created our hole and for this particular loft ladder the recommended size hole is 115cm
by 57cm, around 20mm either side so that's not a bad idea, we'll pack that out in a minute
And by doing it from the top the most important thing is a really solid support in the hole
If you're going to do it our way make absolutely sure this support is as solid as it can possibly
be, just in case you put your foot on it or whatever, you lean on it and it's going to
support you and that's all there is really to it. And that's all, so let's get it in
We recommend 6 screws in each side, 3 lots of 2, pack out between the rafters and the
hatch where you're going to put the screws so that when you put the screws in you don't
bow the timber frame. And that's it. Follow the instructions on your particular loft ladder as to where to put the fixing
brackets, how to put the fixings in, how to fix the stops and the springs, each ladder
will be different. Doing it from the top you will only be able to hand tighten the fixings within the frame
but it's important when we drop the ladder down you'll be able to fully tighten the screws
and the fixings that you've put in. When you've tightened everything as much as you can from upstairs, remove the struts
drop the ladder and the hatch down and tighten everything up as fully as you can
When the struts are fixed to the top section of your ladder it will hang down at the angle
that the ladder will be finished at. It's then time to measure down to the floor in order to cut the ladder to the right length
Measure twice, cut once. Cut the foot off the ladder square because the plastic feet that we're going to fix on
will accommodate for the angle of the ladder. Okay
Choose a willing test pilot for your loft ladder installation
Get them to check it out thoroughly and when you've completed, if you've cut the hole neatly enough
a bit of 2 inch architrave around the hole and perhaps some quadrant where it touches a wall
or is close to a wall is required and you will have a completed installation from DIY Doctor