suspended ceilings

[Bill Wright]

Does anyone have any experience of installing a suspended ceiling? My front hall needs a new ceiling but there's so much stuff above there I'm reluctant to fit a solid ceiling.

Bill

[John Rumm]

Suspended in what sense - wooden joists and plasterboard beneath, or shop fitting style ali frame with drop in tiles?

[Bill Wright]

The latter.

Bill

[The Natural Philosopher]

worked with em enough in offices all right. Its one way to lay cables I suppose - and raised floors too.

But I wouldn't do it that way for 'domestic' - I'd throw up studwork and plasterboard it.

Nice bit of cornice round the edges to cover the inevitable cracks..

paint it white..

[Andy Burns]

What about the heatshink vinyl(?) sheet method, I'm sure I saw someone selling it over here recently, can't find it now though, just don't let the water leaks collect for as long as the Russians do ...

[djc]

I put a very small one in a bathroom.

[Tim Lamb]

In message , Bill Wright writes

I have taken a very old one down:-)

The previous owners of one of my barns used it for sorting potatoes and put in a suspended ceiling to save on heat.

I still have a few lengths of galvanised steel *T* section as they make useful straight edges.

There must be outlets for the materials you would require as lots of the industrial offices I have known used temporary partitions with lightweight suspended ceilings.

The ones here used rigid expanded foam inserts of around 500mm x 1000mm x 30mm, which simply rested inside a grid of T bars. Simple to remove if you wanted access to work above.

[Jim Hawkins]

The shop fitting style are easy to install, with little more than a step ladder, a spirit level, a power drill and the usual hand tools. And they enable you to drop in one or more of those 500 X 500mm flouro lighting fittings - to give you really good lighting,

[Dave Liquorice]

You mean shortest route... Personally I hate suspended ceilings the boards are very fragile and shed shit loads of dust and bits if you so much as sneeze at them let alone lift one.

Fitting so they look good is the same a tiling job as well. It's highly unlikely that any room dimension will be an integer multiple of tile+bar size and how many rooms are dead square...

[John Rumm]

They are pretty straight forward. Buy enough edge and frame parts. Some support strips to fit to the existing ceiling and support wires. Slick a line round the room with a laser level and fix the edges. Fix the support strips to the ceiling, put the frame sections in place and add support wires every so often to stop it flopping up and down. Either insert the tiles as you go, of do them all in one hit at the end.

[Bill Wright]

Thanks to everyone for suggestions.

Bill