Fitting a fire rated downlight to an oversized hole

[Dave N]

I'm trying to get a fire rated GU10 downlight (about 100mm diameter) to stay in a hole that's around 130mm diameter and not surprisingly not succeeding.

The downlight was fitted badly a couple of years ago by an electrician in my absence, and I'm sorting out one or two dodgy jobs that were done while the house was rented out.

The downlight is in a kitchen and replaces an R80 spotlight. There seem to be various adapter bezels available but nothing that fits a fire rated downlight like this one. The ceiling hole is in a bit of a state after being hacked around by the electrician, so anything under 130mm won't do.

Anyone else got experience of this - if so, what did you do?

[newshound]

Plasterboard? You probably need to fill the hole in the usual way with a plasterboard disk supported by two battens. You can cut the hole for the new downlighter first.

[ss]

+1

john Rumm may come along with a link to wiki on how its done.

[Dave N]

[ss]

Here is the link on how its done, quite easy to do.

[newshound]

Oh. Well, as the Irishman said, I wouldn't start from here. Maybe change your downlighter. Something like this?

I have something vaguely similar in my kitchen, they originally had 2D tubes but I've fitted an LED replacement.

[Dave N]

Unfortunately another definite last resort. There are three other matching downlights in the kitchen that the electrician fitted without hacking the ceiling about quite as much - just happens that the hole for this one is excessively large. I've made sure they're all fitted with LED bulbs as I don't think they'll stand frequent replacements.

[John Miller]

Would one of the TLC LED conversion plates be any use?

M

[Dave W]

Is there an unobtrusive part of the ceiling where you could strip off some artex to use on the patch?

[Steve Walker]

What is the artex like? When I bought this house, I removed a built-in wardrobe, which left a patch of ceiling about 2' x 6' that did not match the rest. I used an artex like covering and made a good approximation of the design of the rest of the ceiling using my fingers. I can just about see the difference, but my wife (we got together later) has probably never noticed it.

SteveW

[Brian Gaff (Sofa 2)]

I had to laugh a few years ago, and this would probably not be very fire proof, but the ingenious owner used a Frisbee as a bezel and mounted that on the light then the Frisbee to the ceiling. Interesting looking feature, I thought. It had been painted of course as the Frisbee was orange to begin with. grin. Brian

[nothanks]

I'm fairly sure that I've seen adapter plates for this purpose. Fit them on every light and it will look fine - much easier than trying to make an invisible patch.