Two bedrooms and a baby coming, a rental short one bedroom, a steep old roof with a whole floor of air beneath it. In Irwin's small older houses, that space up top can be the extra room, and we build it.
Irwin Attics
In Irwin, 882 homes hold four rooms or fewer, two-bedroom houses lead every other size, and 589 predate 1940. With lots this compact, the space under the roof is often the most practical room left to add.
Close to 600 Irwin homes went up in 1939 or earlier, before factory-built roof trusses were common, so most of them are framed with rafters. That usually leaves open space up top, though the rafters may be smaller than a finished room needs.
We check every rafter and ceiling joist for size, sag and old cuts, then sister new lumber alongside where they fall short. The floor gets new joists or doubled ones to carry a bedroom, and a stiff subfloor goes down over them.
What we find up thereMore Irwin homes have two bedrooms than any other count. When a family grows, the choice is often between moving and finding one more room inside the house they own, and the attic is where that room usually is.
We plan the room around the full-height strip down the middle, frame an escape window into the gable, add a smoke alarm, and bring a code stair up from the floor below. The low edges become closets and drawers.
Attic bedrooms and suitesRenters live in 57 percent of Irwin's homes. A landlord with a two-bedroom house may want a third bedroom upstairs, since more bedrooms widen the pool of tenants, and every new registration brings an inspection against the building and fire codes.
We build the room to pass that visit: an escape window sized to code, a hardwired smoke detector, a stair with a handrail, and outlets and lighting on a permitted circuit. Durable floors and paint stand up to tenant turnover.
Attic bedrooms and suitesAbout 300 Irwin homes are in two-unit buildings, and some of those attics run straight across both units. Before one side is finished, the wall between the two homes has to be carried all the way up to the roof.
We frame and drywall the separation wall to its fire rating from the attic floor up to the roof boards, seal every gap, and only then build the new room on your side. The neighbor's side stays untouched.
Full attic conversionsIn a house of Irwin's age, the attic may still hold knob-and-tube wiring, the porcelain-knob system from the early 1900s. The electrical code does not allow it to stay buried in insulation, so it has to be dealt with first.
We trace every live line in the attic, have an electrician replace what is old or failing, and wire fresh circuits for the room ahead of any insulation. The panel is checked for room to feed the new circuits.
Heating, cooling and wiringIrwin lots are tight, and adding on outward is rarely an option. Going up into the roof is, but a steep prewar roof can still leave too little standing room, and the fix is more height without more footprint.
A shed or gable dormer framed into the roof adds full height across more of the floor, sized for the borough's snow figure and flashed into the existing shingles. Skylights add light where a dormer will not fit.
Dormers and headroomFigures: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 2020–2024, Borough of Irwin. Snow load: Irwin Borough Code §110-1.
The rest of the job
How it runs, what it costs and who builds it are on our main attic finishing page.
An Attic in the Borough
Irwin's permit office and code firm treat an attic like any other remodel. Two parts of the code matter more up there: the snow the roof must carry, and the fire wall between the halves of a two-family house.
15 daysCode firm review, business days
An attic room is permitted work in Irwin. Plans go to the borough's Main Street office, its outside code firm can take as long as fifteen working days on them, and rentals are inspected at every new registration. Each is spelled out with the Irwin kitchen remodel, and we file.
Irwin rules, explained40 psfIrwin ground snow load
Irwin's code puts the design snow on the ground at 40 pounds per square foot. Every dormer, every new rafter and any roof section we rebuild is sized to that number, so a wet February snowfall sits on a roof built for it, over a room you sleep in.
Irwin Code §110-1 (opens in a new tab)1 hourFire rating between two-family units
The residential code divides the two halves of a duplex with a one-hour fire-rated wall, running unbroken from the foundation up to the roof boards. In a shared attic, finishing your half means building that wall first, then your room, with the neighbor's side left as it was.
Full attic conversionsAttic Questions
Five questions Irwin homeowners and landlords raise before the hatch opens for good. Every stage of the work is shown on the attic finishing service.
Ask a QuestionOld framing, the stair and headroom drive it: how much the rafters and joists need, whether a stair fits without losing a closet, and whether a dormer must add height. Rewiring or a duplex fire wall adds more. You get it in writing once we measure, and the attic service shows our usual ranges.
Attic cost rangesIt can be. Those knobs mark knob-and-tube wiring, and the electrical code does not allow it to stay covered by insulation in an attic. Before we insulate, an electrician checks whether those lines are still live, and replaces any that are with modern cable on new circuits.
Heating, cooling and wiringUsually over another stair, into a hall closet or along a bedroom wall. A code stair needs at least 36 inches of width and its own headroom, so in a four-room house something gives up space, often a closet. We sketch two or three options before you decide.
Stairs and accessOften not enough on their own. Prewar rafters can be shallow, so we deepen them with furring or use foam that insulates well in less space, and keep a vent gap under the roof boards. The room ends up warm without the roof sweating.
Insulation and ventilationIf it is built to code, yes. Irwin inspects a rental against the building and fire codes at each new registration, and an attic bedroom needs a code-size escape window, a working smoke detector and a proper stair. We build to those items so the new lease is not held up.
Irwin Code §195-5 (opens in a new tab)Other Services
The same crew rebuilds Irwin kitchens and baths, fixes up porches on the borough's older blocks and shores up framing that has settled. Choose a service below.
Kitchen RemodelingNew layouts, new cabinets, new counters: framed, built, and installed by the same crew.View Service
Bathroom RemodelingFull gut renovations with proper waterproofing, new framing, and tile set by hand.View Service
Basement FinishingUnfinished basements turned into real rooms: framed, insulated, drywalled, and finished by our crew.View Service
Additions & ADUsAdditions and accessory dwelling units (ADUs), framed from the ground up and tied in clean.View Service
Windows & Exterior DoorsWindows and exterior doors set, flashed, and trimmed so water stays out of the wall.View Service
Exterior Restoration & Structural RepairsRotted trim and siding, sagging joists, failed sills: opened up and repaired to solid wood.View Service
Decks & Covered PatiosDecks, covered patios and three-season rooms, flashed to the house and built for Westmoreland winters.View ServiceVerified Google Reviews
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529 Forest Ave
Trafford, PA 15085
