The loft's the limit
I’ve already mentioned that I don’t do DIY wherever possible. Again, as with parenting skills, I’m acutely aware of my limitations in this department.

However, even I would consider myself not be so much of a spaktard as the guy whose house fell down while he was doing a loft conversion. Why did it fall down, you ask? Well, it transpired that he wanted to save money and did the job himself, on the cheap. Wanting to maximise (how can you tell I work for the Government – I use words like fucking ‘maximise’) the space available in the loft, he decided to cut out the bits of wood that were jutting out into the loft space, in order to create a clearer path.

These bits of wood were, in fact, holding the roof up… A short time after he’d finished the job, the roof just gave way, and brought half the house with it. As this was a terraced house, the neighbours also had to be evacuated in case further structural damage took their properties along for the ride.

I wish I still had the linky to this story… I’m sure it was on the BBC website if anyone can be arsed to do a bit of a search. I don’t think it’ll work if you type in the criteria ‘stupid bugger whose house fell down’ though…
( Davros' Granddad a voice of calm reason in a world of spastics., Fri 4 Apr 2008, 13:16, 2 replies)

pedant
joists don't tend to be used to hold a roof up. people mainly use rafters and maybe some purlins to support these, especially in the sort of pitched roof that one would wish to convert.
(little lord muthafuckin fauntleroy, Fri 4 Apr 2008, 14:17, closed)

I did say I wasn't DIY minded
And now I've edited it, so it looks like you're being pedantic over nothing... ner.
( Davros' Granddad a voice of calm reason in a world of spastics., Fri 4 Apr 2008, 14:28, closed)