Hi
I'd like to re-do my ground floor ceilings. At present they have exposed joists with a nasty fibre-board fixed to battens in between. I'd like to replace the fibre-board (which is falling down anyway) with plasterboard. The trouble is that the ceilings don't, and won't comply with building regs. I'd very much like to keep the exposed joists, and can't afford to lose any ceiling height. Can I be forced to cover the joists, or is like-for-like "repair" OK?
Thanks
LGF
Give us a clue about the type of property?
The way you are talking, "Listed" comes to mind.
Listed??? A neighbour informs me that the main body of my "cottage" is about 300 years old. It's made out of "ironstone" and mud. There is no lime in the mortar, just mud, though the exterior and parts of the interior have been pointed. The walls are 2ft thick and have no foundations. Fortunately the local ironstone is only a few inches down.
was refurbished in the 1930s. The floor in question dates from then, though there are a couple of the original beams supporting the joists. The end result isn't pretty, but it is low. Hence I don't want to lose any ceiling height.
My cottage has definately been accommodation for the lowest of the low in the village, and the tradition continues. Far too modest to be listed!
character for such a house. Lath and plaster would look better. Lath can be EML, wired twig fencing, bamboo mat, reed, etc. If you lime plaster it yourself you're likely to get the sort of finish that would have been there originally. Lime takes forever to go off, ideal for an inexperienced plasterer, and the less than perfectly flat result will fit in just fine.
If you dont mind it looking all wrong and losing character, PB is quicker.
NT
I'd love to do lath and lime plaster. If the BCO lets me, i'll happily collect the cow shit and horse hair myself, but I'm worried she/he might not allow the exposed joists due to fire resistance. It's really a question of whether I'm allowed like-for-like replacement, or whether I have to "upgrade". I've been bricking myself since phoning the building control department for some advice about my floors. Much of my flooring is quarry tiles on earth, the rest is roughly poured concrete patches. I asked about reinstating the floors and was told I had to excavate the floors, put in a concrete slab, insulation, and a dpm. I would have to inject a dpc and as my walls had no foundation, I might have to underpin them. This conversation left me with the feeling that I was on a planet where everyone had gone totally insane.
What? *Why*? How the hell can you tell, by looking at it when it's decorated?
If you want to P&L the ceiling, you will lose the beams. That's probably what you *should* do for originality. I take it that now you've some sort of battening/beading holding up the LDF like this:
================== = Floor ### # "beam" ### @###@ @ batten -------###-------- - LDF ### # exposed "beam" ###
Are you sure thet the "beams" are real, and not dummies nailed to the real beams/boards at 90 degrees, holding on the fibreboard? This is quite often done, esp. when the "beams" don't bear looking at. Look at the bottom edge of the timber - can you see filled nail holes every so often, or plugs? Can you see a row of nail holes where P&L has been removed?
You say the house isn't a listed building. True?
Only parts of the planet are really insane. If you want to get the miserable pen-pushers involved, you'll be on that bit of it. Why do you feel the need to confide in them? If you go along with the advice above, it'll be expensive hassle for naff-all (unless you're trying to fix a problem).
So. Communicate! Are you a Froggy, BTW? Also, there's no cowsh in plaster.
I assume you're in England or Wales. If you're in France then this might not apply!
What makes you think your ceiling doesn't comply with Building Regs? Unless you live in a flat with a separate dwelling on the floor above, or if you have more than 2 storeys, there is no requirement for your ceiling to have any specific rating in respect of either fire resistance or noise insulation. And replacing an existing ceiling does not require approval on its own (unless it is part of other more extensive work that does require approval).
If you're still unsure, give your local Building Control a call.
Plasterboard will be fine between the joists with a skim coat of Multi Finish plaster to fill up the gaps. Be prepared for quite a lot of waste material due to the irregular joists.
Peter
The message from Chris Bacon contains these words:
I live in a hovel of uncertain age where the main beams are exposed. The cross beams are short lengths of approx 4" x 3" section oak notched into the main beams to almost the same level as the top of the main beams. (AIUI this is the normal construction for floors of a certain age). The ceiling in the main room is lath and plaster with woodchip wallpaper disguising the worst of the original finish but that is not an original feature as the floorboards above are painted on the undersides and there are traces of a very thick wallpaper above the current ceiling line. Curiously those floorboards in the bedroom above are not original being wormy tongue and groove unlike the boards in the 2nd bedroom which are solid slabs of oak.
My house isn't listed either. It doesn't have any features worth listing.
BTW: not aware of cowdung in L&P in England - hair yes.
What do you want to reinstate them to? A friend of mine had a 17th (maybe early 18th) century cottage with brick directly onto earth in the kitchen. Not an unknown of arrangement. What BC control have suggested sounds like total overkill if there's no current problems - are they feeling bored or something?
Tim
I thought you were replastering, not rebuilding. If so, the BCO has nothing to do with it.
Millions of Victorian houses meet modern regs in almost no respect, and there is normally no requirement to 'upgrade' them.
Sounds like nonsense, unless theres a good deal more to this story than youre telling us.
I suggest you mosey on over to
NT
I thought you were replastering, not rebuilding. If so, the BCO has nothing to do with it.
Millions of Victorian houses meet modern regs in almost no respect, and there is normally no requirement to 'upgrade' them.
Sounds like nonsense, unless theres a good deal more to this story than youre telling us.
I suggest you mosey on over to
NT
I thought you were replastering, not rebuilding. If so, the BCO has nothing to do with it.
Millions of Victorian houses meet modern regs in almost no respect, and there is normally no requirement to 'upgrade' them.
Sounds like nonsense, unless theres a good deal more to this story than youre telling us.
I suggest you mosey on over to
NT
Excellent ASCII art! My situation is/was as you describe. The joists are definately "real", with small battens nailed along them supporting fibreboard. The joists are 4"x2" at 16.5" centres. One of the floorboards is missing a knot, allowing me to put my finger through and give my wife a fright (look out for the wiggly worm --- EEEEKK!!) As for nail holes, well there are plenty of them, though none of them are filled. I can find no sign of P&L in the house. I could of course just do a conventional ceiling, but my eldest can barely stand up straight downstairs as it is. If I lose a few cm, he will develop a stoop.
The house definately is not listed, and I'm not a frog. I find french email adresses get much less spam.
LGF
Thanks for the advice. I'm doing quite a bit of work of which the ceilings are only part. See one of my earlier replies as to why I prefer to have as little to do with Building Control as possible.
LGF
Thank you.
Remember what happened in The Pink Panther (or one of those films...).
So no rows of nail holes along the joist faces (just for interest)?
You're left then with leaving the boards above the old fibreboard exposed, attaching something direct to the boards, or replacing the arrangement you have in some way. Hmm. How straight/parallel are the beams? How far between them? I've seen a few places that have had fibreboard or whatnot put up as yours, with a moulding tacked on "all the way around" to support and disguise the edge. Um.
My apologies. No insult intended.
I remember watching a Fred Dibnah program where he was helping restore the *outside* render between the wood beams on an old tudor style house
- there was liquified cow much used in that along with the horse hair.
Interesting. My only L&P experience is from a 1930's house and a book written around the same time on how to plaster lathes (amongst other things). Can't remember if that said use goat's hair or horses hair, think it might have been goat.
Definitely no crappy patties involved though.
They were certainly more enterprising / less fussy in Tudor times ;->
Cheers
Tim
Dung is for wattle & daub, not lath & lime plaster.
On 7 Dec 2005 15:33:42 -0800, a particular chimpanzee named snipped-for-privacy@voila.fr randomly hit the keyboard and produced:
That didn't explain it either. Was that floor in a part of the building being converted from something else (an old outhouse perhaps)? If so, the advice sounded reasonable and what was necessary. Was the BCO you spoke to aware of your project, or was he the first sap to pick up a ringing phone? The BCO could have been trying to make you aware of all the potential pitfalls [a.k.a. covering his arse] so that if any of those situations arose, you couldn't turn round and say, "the building inspector didn't say I couldn't excavate my floor below the foundations".
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