I'm fitting a dropped ceiling in my kitchen, nothing special, wood and plasterboard. My plan is to fit frame on the wall, some joist hangers on the frame, fit some main joists, noggins, then plasterboard. Simples My dad said just do joist hangers to the brick wall. To me that's harder work as each hanger needs about 6 screws (to which they'll be about 10), whereas the wood frame can have about 5 per 2m piece (to which they'll be about 6). It won't be supporting much weight, few spot lights and that's it. His idea saves me a few lengths of wood, good as am on a budget. Advice welcome. Cheers
I would happily go with the option that means less drilling the walls, especially if your house is built with very hard bricks, like our bungalow.
Kitchen walls are solid but hit and mine in parts, I'd feel more comfortable if the stresses on a joint hanger are spread over a baton on the wall. Plus the drilling in to the walls for each hanger, more mess and faffing
If you have batons all the way round you can support the plasterboard fully around the perimeter. Are you set on how you're joining the joists to them?
What's your reason for dropping the ceiling in the kitchen out of interest? We were considering it in a previous house, but when we saw the neighbour's kitchen with the ceiling in, it felt quite cramped and got very warm when cooking as the heat/steam had little height to rise before accumulating.
I was concerned about it reducing the ceiling height and being more cramped but the reasons below out weigh that For some reason the water pipes that feed the boiler upstairs go along the top of the walls, this will hide them. The current ceiling isn't level. I fitted an extractor hood, it'll hide the hole this side of the wall so the cover will go all the way up. There's a drop in a corner for the stairs that goes over the kitchen, I'll be making it a level roof. The current ceiling is a mess, looks like someone tried to remove old paint, it'd be far harder to make look nice.
Depends where I measure from Averaging about 2 inches, I'm 5'10 and if I tip toe I'm a small jump from touching the ceiling, I want it to be no lower that tiptoeing and still can't touch but it be almost there (not sure this is approved building measurements)
I can confirm they suck. The starter has gone in mine, but some pillock painted over it so I don't know which starter it is this means I have to **** it one with the broom every time I go in there.