Onto dining room - rewire before ceiling repair?

[JoceAndChris]

Great minds think alike! Gareth also suggested it could be turned into a tent room, a la Empress Josephine. But that treatment is being reserved for the second bedroom, which will be styled as a military campaign room complete with Egyptian knick-knacks and nineteenth century knock down furniture.

 

[Feltwell]

Whilst £1000 to sort out a ceiling is probably reasonable, at the same time it means this work will be pushed back until after Christmas. ( we're having a 3k burglar alarm fitted in two weeks)

£3k sounds like a lot for an alarm. I fitted my own - a proper, hard-wired professional system - and it wasn't that difficult a job, the main pain is the running of the cables. I was given all the bits (in-laws ran a security company) but I think they came to under £400.

You can get wireless alarms but they don't have the best of reputations.

 

[JoceAndChris]

It does sound like a lot but it's a lot of work with around 28 sensors and a separate system for the workshop. This company do bank and National Trust properties. There'll be sensors in every room, and if a certain number are activated then a 24 hour call centre calls the police, you, and a keyholder. They guarantee to have someone there very quickly. And they seem to be sensitive to the age of the property, and to take pains to make it as unobtrusive as possible.

At some point we'll add a network of cameras, but that's another 2 k

I'm not losing anything else to these feckless workshy scrounging scumbags who destroy irreplaceable Georgian features without a moment's thought.

 

[Schoolmarm]

Please can we have a pic of the ceiling to try and offer ideas.

 

[JoceAndChris]

You're just so kind. I know how to get a pic onto Facebook, which I'll do - but I don't know how to get a pic from iPhone onto photobucket, or from Facebook onto here. Such a nuisance the camera and laptop were stolen.

 

[Schoolmarm]

Oh sorry!! I can do even less and have no burglars to blame.

 

[Schoolmarm]

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This shows the many different layers of "stuff" on the original plaster. How many to remove? And a full lime plaster skim - or just a lime plaster patching here and there? Only a lime plasterer can really say, perhaps.

 

[Schoolmarm]

Now the green woodchip paper is off you can see a very old lining paper underneath. In places this is firmly adhered, in others it just comes away.

 

[Schoolmarm]

Water damage from long ago

 

[Schoolmarm]

 

[Schoolmarm]

 

[Schoolmarm]

All the above are Joce's.

 

[JoceAndChris]

Thanks 'marm that's very kind.

 

[Nigel Watts]

I guess you are not using water on the ceiling (otherwise you would have moved all your lovely books out of the way first).

As I see it there are two questions:

1. Is the plaster about to fall down or will it stay in place for another century or so?

2. How much grunge/shabby chicness are you prepared to tolerate?

When my bedroom ceiling was inspected to try to answer Q1 they pressed it gently here and there to see how much give it had. They also looked under the floorboards above to see if the nibs (the critical oozings of haired lime plaster between and behind the laths which hold it all up) were intact. Yours are reed I think(?) but I guess the principles are the same. My ceiling was judged overall to be reasonably sound but in need of some local reinforcing, which was done with some fairly hefty stainless steel screws with wide washers into the joists, suitably recessed and then plastered over.

If yours gets the all clear structurally it then needs some tidying up. Every last shred of paper should be removed and this can only really be done with water and/or steam. Personally I would resist skimming and try to fill the main defects instead. One serious downside of skimming in my view is that it can interfere with the relationship between ceiling and cornice.

You could then paper and paint it, which will make it look much smoother, or give it a liberal coating or three of distemper which will also hide a multitude of sins. If it were my house I would lean towards the distemper.

 

[JoceAndChris]

Lovely advice Nigel- many thanks. Great to hear that from someone who's had so much hands on experience.

Question 1 - I think it could fall down, in places, at any minute.

Question 2 - I need the ceiling to be a bit smoother than it is, though a completely flat plaster board ceiling attached underneath this one wouldn't be in keeping with the property in my view.

The scraping off of all the layers is something I can do , as is the distemper. That leaves the wiring, filling of holes, and attaching with washers for the professionals. Hopefully if I shop around it needn't cost me £1000 for this work.

 

[JoceAndChris]

Oh, and I have been using a bit of water. The books curtains and table are going to the charity shop, I don't really like the look of paperbacks, and what's the point of keeping them. Chris says that in 5 years we won't read books in Beacon Cottage. We will read screens. Anything important published before 1930 ish is already online, so unless your book is beautiful, leather bound, antiquarian, there is little need to keep it, according to Chris.

 

[Flyfisher]

That leaves the wiring, filling of holes, and attaching with washers for the professionals.

Wiring, fair enough, filling of holes, possibly, but using repair washers only really requires driving a screw. Screwfix sell them in packets of 25 for a couple of pounds (they call them 'penny washers' because they're about the size of an old penny).

If you have some obviously loose plaster then the only mildly tricky bit is locating the beam/rafter behind/above the plaster and screwing a washer into it to stabilise the plaster. The worst that can happen is that you miss the beam/rafter and get no grip, in which case just remove the screw and try again. The small hole will be filled in when re-skimming anyway, so no real harm done.

Just a thought, in case you fancy a go.

 

[Feltwell]

It does sound like a lot but it's a lot of work with around 28 sensors and a separate system for the workshop. This company do bank and National Trust properties. There'll be sensors in every room, and if a certain number are activated then a 24 hour call centre calls the police, you, and a keyholder. They guarantee to have someone there very quickly. And they seem to be sensitive to the age of the property, and to take pains to make it as unobtrusive as possible.

At some point we'll add a network of cameras, but that's another 2 k

I'm not losing anything else to these feckless workshy scrounging scumbags who destroy irreplaceable Georgian features without a moment's thought.

28 sensors - yes, that's a large system - I have 6 for a 5 bed house! But I guess that so much of your house is accessible from ground level that it would no doubt need more than most.

You do have my sympathy on being burgled - hopefully not tempting fate, we never have been, the worst we've had is some thieving little scrote stealing the door mirrors off my car - twice. My in-laws ran a security business for many years, my father-in-law attended the aftermath of break-ins on a regular basis and he always said how upsetting it was, especially if the victim was elderly.

One tip when your alarm installers are there - get them to show you how to open the sensors and unscrew them from the wall, makes life much much easier when you come to decorate! You can just tie a clear polybag round them and leave them hanging on their wire whilst you decorate, they still work OK (or at least mine do).

 

[Penners]

the only mildly tricky bit is locating the beam/rafter behind/above the plaster and screwing a washer into it to stabilise the plaster.

One of these is a useful addition to your toolkit: http://www.screwfix.com/prods/27558/Hand-Tools/Detection-Equipment/3-in-1-Stud-Sensor

Joce, I've been thinking about your ceiling. How cleanly do you think you can get most or all the layers of paper off? Can you end up with a passably flat, albeit extensively cracked, surface, which is fairly stable (with or without the addition of extra screws/washers)?

If you think this is possible, then I wonder whether your best bet wouldn't be simply to fill all the cracks and then put up a smooth lining paper. A filler like Polyfilla One-Fill is incredibly light, and if you use a good quality filling knife, you can usually apply it without any need for sanding afterwards. I swear by the stuff. http://www.screwfix.com/search.do;jsessionid=NAXDHYB3TQZZYCSTHZOCFGA?_dyncharset=UTF-8&fh_search=one-fill&searchbutton.x=0&searchbutton.y=0&searchbutton=submit

OK, you wouldn't end up with a pure lime plaster ceiling, but set that against the problems that you're going to have getting a lime plaster skim to stick, and the possible partial loss of the cornice - plus the extra weight of the additional plaster.

It bears thinking about.

 

[MdB]

One of these is a useful addition to your toolkit: http://www.screwfix.com/prods/27558/Han ... tud-Sensor

Does that one work? My multi detector is useless on stud work though its metal detecting mode can detect plasterboard nails/screws quite well which enables you to infer the position of the studs.