Do I Need A Permit To Finish An Attic

All you need to know about attic flooring.

Do i need a permit to finish an attic. She wanted to know if it was necessary or possible now to apply for the permit now what would be the circumstances if she wants to sell the house and the town will find out that she finished the attic without a permit. That s measured after you finish the ceiling if you don t have enough height you ll have to raise the roof line and that adds a lot to your construction costs. Flooring ceiling and wall materials and other elements will reduce headroom and floor space and it s the finished area that matters. In most towns you need to get a permit for everything that you build new and sometimes things that you repair except for.

Cost to finish an attic above a garage. Once you have a permit install subfloor panels over the floor joists so you can lay down flooring. Finishing an attic above a garage ranges from 4 600 to 24 000 depending largely on the condition of the building if you want heat installing an electric baseboard heater costs 400 to 1 200 if you re creating living space you might need to pay the price to install a furnace which is 2 600 to 6 200. In most cases though the joists cannot support live loads and may not even be covered with boards.

Before doing anything else visit your local building department and find out if you need permission to make any structural changes to your home. The basic space requirements for a finished attic boil down to the sizes of the finished rooms. If you re finishing your attic insulating it to the proper r value can cause a dramatic loss of headroom if you limit yourself to fiberglass batts. Beware the following mistakes when finishing your attic.

To meet all three goals insulating your finished attic ventilating the roof and maximizing headroom use a combination of dense batt insulation rigid foam sheeting and air chutes. Finished is important to remember when you re measuring an empty attic space. First check for head clearance. In rare cases especially in new construction homes the attic may have been built unfinished with the correct flooring in place with the idea that the homeowner could later on finish the space.

Building codes vary by location but most require at least a 7 foot clearance for attic expansions.