Loft Boarding
Most homes have a whole room's worth of space sitting empty above the ceiling. Boarding it out is the cheapest square footage you will ever add to your house — no planning, no building work, no disruption, and usually done between breakfast and the school run.
In short — what loft boarding is
Loft boarding is the fitting of a solid, load-bearing floor across a loft so the space can be walked on and used for storage. Done properly the boards sit on a raised subframe above the insulation rather than directly on the ceiling joists, which keeps the insulation at full depth and avoids the cold spots and condensation that compressed insulation causes. Xtraspace Lofts boards lofts across Rainham, Medway and Kent from £350 for a part-boarded storage area up to £1,200 for a large fully boarded loft, and most jobs are completed in a single day.
Part-boarded or fully boarded?
A part-boarded loft gives you a defined storage platform — typically around the hatch and along the central spine of the roof where headroom is best. It's the budget-friendly option and it suits most households, because the low edges of a loft are awkward to use anyway.
A fully boarded loft takes the floor out to the eaves wherever the roof structure allows. You get considerably more usable area, and it makes the space feel like a room rather than a crawl. We'll measure up and tell you honestly which makes sense for your roof — sometimes the extra boards genuinely aren't worth it.
What we board onto
In an older house with traditional cut joists there is often enough depth to board sensibly, though we still raise the floor where the insulation is deep. In anything built since the 1970s the roof is almost certainly trussed, and the floor must be raised to span the trusses without loading them — that's a different job, covered on our new build loft boarding page.
Either way we use heavy-duty boarding rather than thin loft panels, laid tight and fixed properly, so the floor doesn't flex or creak when you walk on it with a box in your arms.
Working around what's already up there
Chimney breasts, purlins, water tanks, cabling and the odd bit of pipework are all normal. We board neatly around them rather than pretending they aren't there, and we leave any tank or valve accessible so a plumber isn't lifting your new floor in two years' time.
Lighting and tidy cabling can be fitted while we're up there, which makes the difference between storage you use and storage you dread.
Loft Boarding we've fitted
Where we fit loft boarding
Based in Rainham (ME8) and covering the Medway towns and the wider Kent area. Pick your town for local detail, typical housing stock and prices.
Loft Boarding
Frequently asked questions
A small part-boarded storage area typically costs from £350–£500 fitted. A medium raised and boarded loft floor is £600–£900, and a large fully boarded loft is £900–£1,200+. A loft ladder supplied and fitted adds £150–£300 and a new insulated hatch £150–£350. Every job is a fixed price after a free survey.
A properly raised and boarded loft floor comfortably takes normal household storage — boxes, suitcases, decorations, baby equipment, tools. It is not a habitable room and should not be loaded like one. If you're planning to store something unusually heavy, tell us at the survey and we'll design the floor around it.
Not the way we do it. We fit a raised loft flooring system that lifts the boards above the insulation so it stays uncompressed and keeps working. Boarding straight onto the joists squashes insulation, loses much of its performance and can cause cold spots and condensation — we don't do that.
Most lofts are boarded, laddered and finished in a single day. We usually arrive around 8am, put floor covers down throughout the house, and many jobs are complete by early afternoon.
No. Boarding a loft for storage is not a material change of use and does not require building regulations approval or planning permission. That changes if you convert the loft into a habitable room, which is a different job entirely — see our loft boarding vs loft conversion guide.
Often fitted with this
Raised Loft Flooring
Raised loft flooring fitted across Kent — boards lifted clear of the insulation so it keeps working. Stops cold spots and condensation. From £600 fitted.
£600–£1,200 fittedNew Build Loft Boarding
New build loft boarding across Rainham, Medway & Kent. Raised floors spanning trussed roofs — insulation intact, no truss cut, warranty safe. From £600.
£600–£1,200 fittedLoft Ladder Fitting
Loft ladders supplied and fitted across Rainham, Medway & Kent. Timber, aluminium and concertina ladders from £150 fitted, usually in the same visit.
£150–£300 supplied & fittedGet a fixed price for loft boarding
Free survey, no obligation — an honest look at your loft and a clear price before you commit to anything.