symon miller wrote:

I intend to install about 12 halogen lights in the ceiling of two adjacent
rooms. Each room has at present a single ceiling light fitting.
Can anyone tell me the best way to deal with beams in the void. I am unable
to lift the floor above so I have to work from below. I already know that
there is no way to get all the lights in place without dealing with beams in
the ceiling void.
How do you drill a hole in a beam through the small access hole for a
fish-eye halogen light?

The short answer is "with difficulty" ;-)

The longer answer depends on few factors like beam spacing, proximity of
hole to beam, and size of hole (which will be governed by you light
fitting).

Several options:

If the light fitting hole is large(ish), and can be positioned next to
the beam you need to drill, and you have/can get/hire/borrow an angle
drill, you might be able to insert the drill into the hole and then
drill through the beam. Possible - but tricky. You could alternatively
drill through at a steeper angle using an ordinary straight drill.

If the light fitting can be positioned a fair distance from the beam to
be drilled, then you could use a long (say 400mm or more) drill bit at a
shallow angle through the light mounting hole. Sometimes a 19mm spade
bit on the end of a 300mm extension (or two) can work well with a
smallish cordless drill on the other end. The difficult thing is having
got your hole, then threading the wires through it at a distance -
especially if you can't get a hand in through the hole for the light!

Finally a fail safe method which is simpler to carry out, but will
require some making good after: work out where the beam you want to
cross is, and then drill a series of partially overlapping holes *up*
through the ceiling into the bottom of the beam. If you use a wide spade
bit (say 25mm) then three holes will usually be enough to cross the
beam. You only need drill 10mm or so into the underside of the beam - so
that will be enough depth to leave a channel across the underside of the
beam, but above the ceiling. once the wire is in place you can fill the
holes in the ceiling.



--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/