Hi guys,
I’m planning to build an attic / loteng in my middle room’s house.

Middle room orientations:
EAST - facing living room
WEST - facing my neighbour’s
NORTH - facing kitchen
SOUTH - facing entrance to my master bed room

My house is a semiD 1 storey somewhere in Kedah.

The room size is as follows (all dimensions are in feet):

Length: 12.5
Width: 10
Height: 20

Main reason is that, middle room is very high, having 20ft as opposed to other rooms (11ft height floor to ceiling).
Thus, i would want to utilize the space by splitting the room into GF (ground floor) & 1F (first floor).

My questions are as follow:

1. I’m trying to think a suitable design on how to VENTILATE the GF room. I’m thinking to ask the contractor to make a small rectangular hole & put a ventilation window (like the typical toilet ventilation window) to give room more ventilation (apart from having a 1HP inverter AC inside there).

So my question: what is the suitable size for the rectangular ventilation window size?
Or should i install an EXHAUST FAN? But that would look UGLY and will be NOISY ya?

FYI, the ventilation window will face the LIVING ROOM area in my house (facing EAST; refer to image below).

2. I want to install AC at the GF room. So in order to DRAIN OUT the condensation water, i had to resort to use a DRAIN PUMP together with the AC, where the pump will bring the water UPWARDS and towards the existing window at 1F.

AC at 1F can just direct the water thru the existing window there via gravity.
(2 ACs; one at GF & one at 1F)

So my question: which AC DRAIN PUMP model is good? Height from the GF AC to the window at 1F will be around ~4 feet.

3. Contractor quoted me nearly RM10k for this attic project.
Is this a reasonable price?

Anybody got do attic project before?
Pls do share how you guys do it.

Appreciate your feedbacks guys.

Watch this series on you tube to have more ideas ...

george clarke's amazing spaces

This post has been edited by mini orchard: Aug 6 2020, 09:08 PM

from design standpoint, i would be more concerned with the supporting beam at 1F. Your plan shows 12.5ft to edge of the patio area but your 1st floor attic plan is 20ft. That makes the patio area 7.5ft. That makes the existing roof beam at 5ft. Seems to me there is a mistake in measurements.

Actually, the dimensions are as follows:

Length: 12.5 ft
Width: 10 ft
Height: 20 ft

So, do you think a 9 ft height at the 1F attic would be sufficient? Ventilation wise?

ok I misunderstood your section plan as floor plan for attic. what sort of roof do you plan to do? what sort of floor would the attic have? 9ft seems too low if you have 1ft rafter or beam.how do you plan for your existing beam or column to take the new load. As a guide, UBBL requires 10% floor area as openings/ventilation. I can comment if I know more details on what you plan to do.

For roof, i won’t modify anything as i just use the existing built (outside roof using typical ceramic roof tiles)
My attic will be using thick plywood with vanish finishing for the floor.

For ventilation on 1F, there is a sliding window.
But for ventilation on GF, i would like to seek your opinion: how big should i design for the rectangular ventilation window? 1.5 ft by 1 ft is fine? Just want to bring all the heat out to my living room area.

FYI, ventilation for GF is one of the main questions i asked in this thread earlier.

You may refer to my simple attic plan sketch to get the general idea.

Thanks for your input btw.

i assume your plywood floor would be supported by rectangular hollow section @2ft spacing as rafters? The RHS to sit on the brickwall? space constraint on the windows height would interfere with the window lintel and rafters. how do you plan to support the plywood flooring? I think your attic would be a hot area.

as mentioned 10% floor area would probably need 12.5 ft2 of window min. 1.5 ft2 is definitely not enough. Louvered windows dont look good. Fixed glass defeats the purpose of ventilation. The practical way I see is fixed glass with mechanical ventilation.

The floor support beam will done something like this:



I was thinking of installing this type of ventilation window

ok understood. you consider the floor height is reduced with the RHS column say 1.5-2ft? Means your GF height is prob under 9ft

Yes.

But i was hoping to increase the GF height to say 11 ft. Then the 1F height will be left with 9 ft (total height 20 ft from floor to ceiling)

This is because i’ve ordered a 8 ft by 8 ft cupboard to be put underneath it.