Whatever Happened to the Attic?

By Katherine Salant

As Steve Martin’s "Father of the Bride" character George Banks becomes increasingly unnerved at the spiraling cost of his daughter’s wedding, he decides to take a small economy and retreats to the attic to try on his 15-year-old tuxedo. There, surrounded by comfortingly familiar and artfully arranged boxes and clutter, he dons the tux, which of course is now too small. It is a poignant moment that could only happen in a movie - these days most houses do not have attics.

What happened to that special refuge where one could steal away to write poetry, practice soliloquies or just ruminate on general conditions? Fifty or 60 years ago, attics were common in all but the most arid climates in the U.S. But the 1950's - the decade that brought us Elvis Presley and rock 'n roll - also brought big changes in home building, specifically in how the roof was framed. Instead of using large rafters to support the roof, a building tradition that is hundreds if not thousands of years old, home builders began to use roof trusses. The builders made the switch because the trusses were easier to work with, they were as strong if not stronger than the rafters, and they substantially reduced a builder's costs. As time passed, the trusses also proved to be more environmentally benign than the rafters because they can be made with small pieces of wood and do not require logging of old growth trees.

The only down side to the trusses was that they filled up the space under the roof so that it could no longer be used for storage or converted into livable space. But the builders turned this to their advantage to further reduce their costs. With headroom no longer an issue, they lowered the roof pitch. This in turn reduced the surface area of the roof and the amount of roofing materials required to frame and cover it.

At the same time the roof was changing, builders were finding better ways to damp proof basements and control the humidity in them during the summer months. Homeowners discovered that the basement was actually a more convenient place to store things because they didn't have to deal with a pull-down stair and hauling things up and down through a narrow opening. And a basement, unlike many attics, afforded plenty of headroom. If the household needed more livable space, the basement could be finished, and heating and cooling it proved to be less costly than conditioning an attic space.

Along with the changes in roof framing and basement damp proofing, the house itself was getting bigger, so there was less need to capture the area under the roof. The average size of a new house in 1950, when attics were still common, was about 1,000 square feet; any additional area that could be used for storage or converted to livable space was pounced on. The average-sized new house today is more than twice as big with about 2,300 square feet, usually divided among four bedrooms and two and a half baths, a study, an eat-in kitchen family room, a dining room and possibly a small living room. Now when buyers want a bigger house, they usually want bigger rooms, not more rooms, a number of home builders from around the country said. As Moorestown, N.J., builder Chris Kindbon observed, "Most buyers do not need a fifth or sixth bedroom on a separate floor, unless the household has a young adult that needs privacy." As for the extra storage that an attic would provide, the builders said buyers are not interested.

There are, however, two exceptions to the "no more attics" rule. They are making a comeback, albeit on a limited scale, in areas where builders are raising the roof pitch for aesthetic reasons - many people think a steeper roof pitch looks better and it can make a house look bigger from the street. And attics never disappeared in those areas of the country where builders do not routinely build basements because of poor soils, a high water table, a frost line near the surface or no frost line at all.

In Charlotte, N.C., for example, the frost line is only 12 inches below the surface. The cost to excavate and build an unfinished basement typically runs as high as $22,000 to $24,000, roughly three times the cost to tuck a 400 square foot bonus room under the roof of the garage or under the roof of the main house, said Charlotte home builder Mike Goodwin. For buyers who don’t want to go the whole nine yards and get the finished bonus room, his firm also offers a $500 pull down stair to a completely unfinished area under the peak of a roof with a shallower pitch. "A tall person could not stand up straight in there, but it’s a handy place to keep suitcases and boxes of old books and records," Goodwin said.

When a builder offers an attic option that's high enough to stand in comfortably, however, it’s still not likely to be as cavernous or romantic as George Banks'. Though some custom builders still frame a roof the old fashioned way using rafters, most production builders use a "space saver" type of truss that is configured so that a room or a storage area can be built under the peak of the roof. For a 2,400-square-foot house that's 30 feet wide (a typical width for this sized house), the finished area up under the roof would be about one-third as wide as the floors below, enough to get two smallish-sized bedrooms, a stair and a bathroom. The added cost to get this space varies dramatically. In the Charlotte area where land and labor costs are low, it may be only $15,000, but in the Richmond, Va., and Washington D.C., markets, $20,000 is a more realistic figure. In Tampa, Fla., it can be as much as $25,000.

It's also possible that the Cape Cod, with its second floor tucked in under the roof, may be making a comeback. The National Association of Home Builders is building four 1,900-square-foot, three and four-bedroom, two-bath, updated versions of the traditional Cape Cod at its Research Center in Upper Marlboro, Md., a suburb of Washington, D.C. In two of the houses, the second floor is framed with conventional rafters so that the area where the roof is too low to be used as living area - a bit more than half of the second floor - can still be captured for storage. The other two houses will incorporate an innovative roof truss system that is significantly less expensive than conventional "space saver" attic trusses. These houses will not have storage under the roof, but the rooms will be bigger. Project Manager Chad Garner anticipates that the houses will sell for about $200,000, a bargain in the Washington, D.C., market. If there is sufficient buyer interest in this demonstration project, the scheme may be adopted by home builders in that area as well in other markets.

Copyright 2002-2006 Katherine Salant. Distributed by Inman News.