Lath & Plaster ceilings must come down

Treadway1

I would honestly suggest you simply board over the existing L&P ceiling,
otherwise....

http://oi51.tinypic.com/10rvktc.jpg :eek: Me after having ripped down an L&P ceiling at my brothers place! That large black band across my forehead was seriously about 1cm thick! Oh and, believe it or not, I had actually been wearing goggles and a mask during the process. I was still blowing that carp out of my nose 4 days later.

If you want to put in spotlights and are concerned about the fire risk, then at worst I'd suggest taking down 100-150mm square patches where you want the lights and sit them in the plasterboard.

Anyway, whatever you do, best of luck.

viv0147

As a retired plasterer!!! my advice is to forget going up to the loft, wear a mask and rip the old ceiling down, and yes it will make one hell of a mess just clean it up and renew your ceiling then have a nice long shower.

wallbash

Curious to know why , you would find it easier to stand under the falling ceiling rather than sit on the joists
and kick ( or use a spade) the ceiling down.
Whichever way ........................ the shower is compulsory.

keystone

wallbash wrote: »

Curious to know why , you would find it easier to stand under the falling ceiling rather than sit on the joists
and kick ( or use a spade) the ceiling down.

Well I'd find it rather difficult doing it any other way for ground floor ceilings.

Whichever way ........................ the shower is compulsory.

+ 1.

Cheers

googler

Don't forget to seal the room, if you're going to do it from within.

Gaffa tape or similar over the edges of the door, so that the dirt doesn't make its way to the rest of the house.

Don't even think about leaving any furniture or carpets in there whilst you do it.

msfoxymax

OK your options are

PLAN A
1 - clear the house of all people and living things
2 - clear the house of all furniture, carpets or anything you remotely would like to use again
3 - tape (industrial strength or NASA used products if available lol) every nook and cranny from your house and down at least 3 neighbours either side
4 - wear spacesuit (should be available from the same NASA shop you bought the tape from)
5 - set up camera to take photo of hiroshima size cloud that WILL appear as soon as you start removing the plaster
6 - when finished tie yourself to large pole while firemen hose you down for the next 5 days and repeat hosing inside house (infact probably the whole street will need hosing down
7 - arrange divorce lawyer

OR

PLAN B
1 - Plasterboard over awful ceiling and chill with a beer :beer:

I know what plan i would chose...................................

wallbash

I agree with msfoxymax , its plan A , ( with the addition of the beer.)

BTB1_2

It's a very messy job, but you will be glad that you took it down once the mess has gone.

Doing it from the loft is easiest and then seperate the lathes from the plaster to make shifting easier and watch for standing on the nails.

Once reboarded it will make downlight installation much simpler and you.

confuseddad_2

Why not drop the height of the ceiling by by putting new stud work up and boarding on top.

This will give more strength should the old stuff come down and it will make putting in downlights much easier.

Granted it may be more expensive but it will look better in my opinion and does away with all the s*it* that is up there.

ema_o

I asked about this a while ago and was told to imagine what the mess will be like stick your head in a bucket of soot (thanks wallbash!)

We did take one of our ceilings down as we took out a wall and there wasn't really enough left of it to leave up, that was only a small area but made a huge amount of mess!

The others we are / have boarded over. We have spotlights in one of the ceilings that is still lath and plaster (we're about to overboard that one) and also spots in one of the ceilings we have boarded over. The plasterer actually said that if the ceilings were sound it would be easier to overboard!