Dwanging, hope you like dwanging too.

With the steel beams fitted and secured in place, it was now time to fit the structural joists which would form the new floor level and would be hung from steel beams using the twisted hanging straps.  The picture above shows the flitch beam in place and hung from the steel.  The flitch beam will help provide structural support for the stairwell opening.

This is the future stairwell opening.  All joist ends are hung from joist hangars and the two joist hangers at the far side are bolted through the joist into the chimney breast wall.  The flitch beam is the large double joist nearest to us in this picture.  The existing 6"x 2" joists have simply been cut and are sitting in place until the time comes for the stairwell opening to be cut.  The opening will be circular to fit the shape of the planned spiral staircase.

As you can see, the building up of the existing 6" x 2" joists to create 9"x 2" sized timbers which were then sandwiched between the 9"x 2" joists has created very substantial timbers which span the length of the loft and are hung under the steel.  Fitting all of this took twice as long as i had initially thought (and was twice as dear) and as a result I'm now about 1 month behind schedule (and budget).

Once the joists were fitted and hung from the steel the entire floor had to be dwanged out.  Lots of little 9"x 2" dwangs all needing to be cut to size, knocked into place and nailed.  My knees don't like dwanging!

As well as dwanging the joists the oxter supports required to be fitted in their final place.  The supports were moved back approximately 8" from their original place on each of the 3 sides of the loft and this should create a room which is 5m x 5.5, (incl. the en-suite).  The supports were bolted through the roof trusses with toothed connector plates in between.

All of the structural joists were hung from the steel, with the twisted hanging straps used on both sides of the steel beams and nailed in place with twisted square nails.  As per the structural engineers specification, the steel beams each had to have two restraint brackets fitted which prevents rotational movement of the beams.

After all this was done the work was inspected by the Building Standards Officer of the Council and i'm pleased to say that it was given the seal of approval.  Onwards and upwards.