We're doing a major rennovation of a large victorian property, and in
the first mishap in a few months, last night a foot went through the
neighbours ceiling. Luckily she wasn't in bed at the time; unluckily
that part of the ceiling hadn't yet been cleaned of dust & debris and
so that all ended up downstairs, although half an hour with Numatic
Charles and the mess was pretty much gone.

The question now is how best to repair the hole satisfactorily and
without too much expense, and advice from the group is most welcome
here! Ideas that came to mind so far a

1) squaring off the hole, putting new plasterboard for the hole,
applying new skim and painting. Not sure if this is feasible/advisable.

2) fitting new plasterboard under the entire existing ceiling, skim and
paint.

3) a suspended ceiling. We had already looked at various sound
insulation options, and this may be an opportunity to deploy something,
but cost is an issue and this was obviously an unexpected event.

Reading already, one post suggested that putting new plasterboard under
the existing ceiling may not meet fire regs, although not all aspects
of work on the property need to meet current regs due to its age, but
I've not checked with our build control officer yet.

All advice and experience most welcome here.

Nick

wrote:
We're doing a major rennovation of a large victorian property, and in
the first mishap in a few months, last night a foot went through the
neighbours ceiling. Luckily she wasn't in bed at the time; unluckily
that part of the ceiling hadn't yet been cleaned of dust & debris and
so that all ended up downstairs, although half an hour with Numatic
Charles and the mess was pretty much gone.

The question now is how best to repair the hole satisfactorily and
without too much expense, and advice from the group is most welcome
here! Ideas that came to mind so far a


Depends what the existing finish is, to a degree. If it's just paint I would
square off the hole, stick a larger piece over the hole in the loftspace,
cut another piece to fit into the hole, from the neighbours room, obviously,
and "glue" it to the hole-covering piece, make good with filler and paint.

I'd also bevel the edges of the cuts and the fill-in piece to reduce the
possibility of it being easily visible.

Si

wrote:

We're doing a major rennovation of a large victorian property, and in
the first mishap in a few months, last night a foot went through the
neighbours ceiling. Luckily she wasn't in bed at the time; unluckily
that part of the ceiling hadn't yet been cleaned of dust & debris and
so that all ended up downstairs, although half an hour with Numatic
Charles and the mess was pretty much gone.

The question now is how best to repair the hole satisfactorily and
without too much expense, and advice from the group is most welcome
here! Ideas that came to mind so far a
I put my foot through my ceiling. :-(

A plasterer was coming shortly after to do another job. He simple
removed the damaged plasterboard, cut back to beams, nailed a piece of
plasterboard over the now enlarged hole and skimmed. As they say "You
can't see the joins". Mind you his work is as near perfect as you could
wish, his corners are to die for.

wrote:
We're doing a major rennovation of a large victorian property, and in
the first mishap in a few months, last night a foot went through the
neighbours ceiling.

The *neighbour's* ceiling? Is that next door, or downstairs?

1) squaring off the hole, putting new plasterboard for the hole,
applying new skim and painting. Not sure if this is feasible/advisable.

That's the cheapest and simplest way - no reason why it shouldn't look
as good as before if done properly. Is the existing ceiling plasterboard
though, or lath-and-plaster (which makes it a bit more awkward)? You
might want to check from above where the existing joints in the
plasterboard are, and if close to the damaged area, you could pull the
old stuff down as far as the old join (to avoid having two weak joins
relatively close together).

Is the existing ceiling finish just flat, plain, painted?

2) fitting new plasterboard under the entire existing ceiling, skim and
paint.

Could do, but can't see any benefit over (1) - certainly a lot more
expensive and slow. Would help sound insulation, if that's an issue as
you mention below?

3) a suspended ceiling. We had already looked at various sound
insulation options, and this may be an opportunity to deploy something,
but cost is an issue and this was obviously an unexpected event.

Need for sound insulation suggests a downstairs neighbour rather than
next door? Can you clarify as it's very relevant!

Reading already, one post suggested that putting new plasterboard under
the existing ceiling may not meet fire regs, although not all aspects
of work on the property need to meet current regs due to its age, but
I've not checked with our build control officer yet.

Can't see how adding an extra layer of pboard can make the fire regs
situation worse than it is. Yes there are standards, but they don't
need to be applied retrospectively to an old property (even if you might
want to do so for safety's sake).

If the neighbour is next door, that means you have adjoining roofspace,
which is certainly a no-no these days from a Building Regs viewpoint
(spread of fire); it also leaves your property vulnerable to burglary
via next door and could do with sorting I would have thought.

David

Claim on the insurance? I've done the 'foot thru ceiling' trick twice
and they paid out both times.

Dave

wrote:

All advice and experience most welcome here.

If you want to improve sound insulation, easy way is to fit small
dimenstion joists 2-3" below existing ceiling and fit new ceiling to
that, so that floor and ceil are decoupled.

Otherwise just patch the hole with PB and fill, I'm not sure why one
would need to do anything else.


NT

Lobster wrote in message ...
wrote:
We're doing a major rennovation of a large victorian property, and in
the first mishap in a few months, last night a foot went through the
neighbours ceiling.

The *neighbour's* ceiling? Is that next door, or downstairs?

Many thanks to all for the quick and considered replies.

The neighbour is downstairs; a lady into her twilight years. It's a
large detached victorian property. Downstairs is a small flat, split
by our hallway that leads from the original front door to upstairs
split over 3 levels.

1) squaring off the hole, putting new plasterboard for the hole,
applying new skim and painting. Not sure if this is feasible/advisable.

That's the cheapest and simplest way - no reason why it shouldn't look
as good as before if done properly. Is the existing ceiling plasterboard
though, or lath-and-plaster (which makes it a bit more awkward)? You
might want to check from above where the existing joints in the
plasterboard are, and if close to the damaged area, you could pull the
old stuff down as far as the old join (to avoid having two weak joins
relatively close together).

The ceiling is plasterboard, and option 1 is what we're going for. The
hole is "conveniently" placed between two joists, although we'll need
to cut back to a third joist. The ceiling is painted without any
special finish.

3) a suspended ceiling. We had already looked at various sound
insulation options, and this may be an opportunity to deploy something,
but cost is an issue and this was obviously an unexpected event.

Need for sound insulation suggests a downstairs neighbour rather than
next door? Can you clarify as it's very relevant!

Right. She's mostly quiet, but your neighbours can change, and we're
aware of how well sound travels between the floors. We're also having
exposed floorboards, so no benefit of any absorption from carpet. The
room is a bedroom below the main bedroom in ours.

Can't see how adding an extra layer of pboard can make the fire regs
situation worse than it is. Yes there are standards, but they don't
need to be applied retrospectively to an old property (even if you might
want to do so for safety's sake).

I wasn't sure either, unless it was an issue if you didn't put the
same thickness of plasterboard under the old ceiling, and so the bit
under the hole being too thin.

This property is a big project, and the first place I bought. Putting
your foot through a ceiling feels like a rite of passage, and actually
one of the more trivial issues that we've had really. The property was
in a dire state when I bought it, and needed more work than I
imagined. Soiled throughout from several seemingly incontinent dogs.
Heavy smokers and drinkers living there. Undeocrated, or cleaned it
would seem, for decades. Literally every inch of wood has had to be
stripped, most of the walls at least reskimmed, with some needing
total replastering to replace blown plaster, ceilings replastered.
Total rewire and computerised lighting fitted (my whim, not really a
necessity exactly), new boiler and plumbing, 17 sash windows unjammed,
removed, partly reglazed, puttied, resashed and with new window
furniture. Floors stripped. New spindles fabricated by a wood turner
to reinstate missing ones in part of the staircase. Some changes to
internal layout. 70m2 of floor and wall tiles to be imported from
Poland. New kitchen from arena kitchens (thanks to the group for that
one)... The list seems endless.

Still flushing the old loo with a bucket at the moment, and there's a
really bad smell from downstairs when the neighbour cooks fish for
hours. (eewww!) We're using expanding foam to try and block up gaps
to the side of the first set of stairs, but it's not completely cured
yet (not pun intended!). Anyone any suggestions?

Another couple of months and the place may at least start to be
habitable

Nick