downlighters

[dennis]

It'l probably fall out soon. Its best to cut a strip of ply, plasterboard or similar, push it through the hole, glue it over the hole, plaster hole, re-drill.

[tabbypurr]

like I thought, dense

[Lobster]

On 19 Jul 2015, dennis@home grunted:

I put a square plate of plasterboard above the hole, and got SWMBO below to wield her pencil and draw around the hole; then glued a second plasterboard plate over the hole from above. I cut out the pencilled plasterboard circle from the original plate, and glued that into the resulting circular recess in the ceiling, and made good with plaster - result was as strong (or stronger) then the original ceiling. I then cut a new circular hole, sized to fit the new downlighter, in the double-thickness plasterboard.

(FWIW I've noticed that modern downlighter fittings tend to be smaller than when the genre first appeared... I searched high and low without success to find similar-sized replacements for my knackered downlighters)

[mail-veil]

I have often thought I could make use of a range of thin plastic sleeves (vacuum formed would be adequate) to fit in damaged holes, or indeed to protect the plaster edge.

If it had a largish rear flange that could be trimmed and stuck down onto the plasterboard in the attic a cavity would be left below that could be filled in one go to make good the repair or bring an aperture down to the required size.

Different thicknesses of plasterboard could be accommodated by having the sleeve deep and easily trimmed down to size.

[John Rumm]

That is being partly economical with the truth IMHO.

Enlarging a hole is relatively easy if you have a hole saw matching both the original and the new hole size, and can fit them both on the arbour at the same time - you then use the smaller as a pilot for the larger.

Failing that, a batten placed on top of the ceiling over the hole, and fixed in place, will then carry a normal pilot bit[1].

A similar trick can be done with hole saws for cutting a ring of plasterboard to reduce an existing hole, although this is more difficult, since you still need to retain and glue the ring in place.

Any system that requires multiple applications of wet plaster freehand does not really claim the title of "easy enough" in my book - more like last resort if you can't find a better way of doing it!

[1]

[tabbypurr]

a matter of minutes a time. I didnt find it in any way difficult, and it was pretty quick.

NT

[JimK]

How about these? EBay 221595880621 Others are available....

Jim K