Overboarding ceiling, that isn't going well need advice

[kevinsmbuk]

Currently overboarding a ceiling for the first time and it's bloody hard. Had quite a few issues I've come up against, broken a couple of boards too and damaged others. Is it as bad as I think or should I jack it in and get someone in to do it?

Main issues are broken corners of the board in a couple places and some gaps in places too. I was thinking of removed paper and broken plasterboard in areas that need it and just bond those areas in before skimming over. Few pics so you know what I mean.

 

[kevinsmbuk]

 

[plastic_peanut]

Not criticising but how have you managed to make such a hash of it?

Did you not have a helper to support the boards? Something I am looking to do so keen to understand the pitfalls

 

[23vc]

The bulges in your last pic are where the board is too tight against the wall.
If you’re doing it on your own, get a board mate tool, little red plastic thing that screws into the board and supports then next board. makes it massively easier and wouldn’t be without it now. Generally the bigger gaps can be filled before skimming so it’s not a total disaster.

 

[kevinsmbuk]

Not criticising but how have you managed to make such a hash of it?

Did you not have a helper to support the boards? Something I am looking to do so keen to understand the pitfalls

Boards are very awkward to hold. Done first 3 on my own and had a couple of props to support the board. My wife helped me today on the remaining few. This is one job I would say it's best to get someone else to do it to be honest.

 

[kevinsmbuk]

The bulges in your last pic are where the board is too tight against the wall.
If you’re doing it on your own, get a board mate tool, little red plastic thing that screws into the board and supports then next board. makes it massively easier and wouldn’t be without it now. Generally the bigger gaps can be filled before skimming so it’s not a total disaster.

It may be that there is a little lip on ceiling from where some coving adhesive remained and I have screwed the other side of it and broke the plasterboard. Should I remove the broken pieces and bond it? Can't imagine plastering broken pieces is a good idea!?

 

[plastic_peanut]

Boards are very awkward to hold. Done first 3 on my own and had a couple of props to support the board. My wife helped me today on the remaining few. This is one job I would say it's best to get someone else to do it to be honest.

Thanks mate, sure you will get it sorted out

 

[foxhole]

Looks like it was cut with a blunt spoon.j

 

[23vc]

Should I remove the broken pieces and bond it?

you can do if a bit of gentle pursuasion with a lump hammer/bit of 4x2 doesn’t flatten it out. If the person skimming it knows what they’re doing, it’ll still end up flat as a pancake. Lots of dodgy boarding gets skimmed to perfection. Just try and sort it out for the rest of it, and seriously, get one of those board mates. Game changer. My mrs hasn’t helped me board a ceiling for years now and I’m keen to keep it that way

 

[kevinsmbuk]

you can do if a bit of gentle pursuasion with a lump hammer/bit of 4x2 doesn’t flatten it out. If the person skimming it knows what they’re doing, it’ll still end up flat as a pancake. Lots of dodgy boarding gets skimmed to perfection. Just try and sort it out for the rest of it, and seriously, get one of those board mates. Game changer. My mrs hasn’t helped me board a ceiling for years now and I’m keen to keep it that way

Cheers mate I appreciate that

 

[Munzz]

When I boarded my first ceiling it looks similar but is fine now, tips I took from that:

1) Get help with the boards, balancing it on your nose/head/ears just won't cut it.
2) Use a sharp knife, the blade I was using was blunter than James and butchered the cuts.

 

[fenny666]

Dead old thread but I stumbled across it so someone else might who needs advice so I'll contribute just on the off chance this may be helpful to someone at some point.

This is a complete hash unfortunately. But completely forgivable to someone who is none the wiser. I'll try and highlight some common mistakes and in this case obvious mistakes.

This is 'overboarding' which basically means applying an additional skin to the existing 'skin' as opposed to boarding directly to the joists. This demonstrates the first problem with the OP's post. When overboarding you absolutely must locate exactly where the joists are. It's likely your joists are imperial and they obviously don't accommodate metric boards. On top of that, even if your joists are metric, there is no guarantee the original fitter was critical with his centres. Ascertain which way your joists go. Always board perpendicular to joists. To find the joists simply screw into the existing ceiling until you hit a joist(Start at the perimeter). Then screw to either side to eventually determine the centre of the joist. Then find the next joist centre. Measure the centres. This which will give you an educated guess as to where the subsequent joists reside. Again you should screw to find the centres of each joist.

Do this to both sides of the room then chalk a line for each joist.

This gives you 2 important and necessary pieces of information. Firstly and most obviously it gives you a visual idea of how to board the ceiling so that board ends can meet on a joist close to 50/50(or enough to 'get a fix') which guarantees a flush joint. Secondly it gives you the joist centres. This is important because the centres govern what board to use. I'll ignore 9mm boards because they're sh*t. I'll focus on 12.5mm and 15mm boards. 12.5mm for fixing at a maximum 450mm centres. Greater than 450mm up to a maximum 600mm centres use 15mm board.

The above is an absolute minimum. There is plasterboard (and accompanying systems) to meet a huge array of specifications. Cosmetic/minimal(as above) to Fire resilience to Sound insulation to Durability. Consider when using plasterboard with a little more expense you can achieve much more than cosmetic value.

Also, when boarding ceilings...get help! The pictures you've posted are shockingly rough. It's fixable... but with a little care it never needed to end up in that state. I'm not having a go at you. It's so bad it made me laugh. I commend you for having a go. You've got to make mistakes to learn from them.

 

[kevinsmbuk]

Thanks for your feedback and comments although a bit OTT! Just to point out I did locate the joists by firstly using a magnet to determine where tack nails were. I then pushed a flat headed screwdriver through the ceiling to find the joists at either side of the joist and at either end of the room. I used screw at the centre of the joists either end of the joist and used a chalk line to run the centre line of the joist on the ceiling so I would know where to screw my boards.

The issues I have had seem to have occurred because I run the first board against the wall and the wall is out, so therefore the rest of the boards didn't meet very well. Because of this the screws had to be put close to the edge of the board where they join to get a fixing on the joist. Obviously it should be screwed at around 15mm away from a cut edge. The breaks in the board were caused by my struggling, a couple of points I was struggling to the point where the board dropped from a low height, or the edge was too close to the wall and cracked when it started to get screwed down. One thing I have struggled with properly in DIY. Can't say I enjoyed it or would want to it again, whereas electrics, plumbing, fencing, patios or pretty much anything else I'm happy to do and enjoy!

Dead old thread but I stumbled across it so someone else might who needs advice so I'll contribute just on the off chance this may be helpful to someone at some point.

This is a complete hash unfortunately. But completely forgivable to someone who is none the wiser. I'll try and highlight some common mistakes and in this case obvious mistakes.

This is 'overboarding' which basically means applying an additional skin to the existing 'skin' as opposed to boarding directly to the joists. This demonstrates the first problem with the OP's post. When overboarding you absolutely must locate exactly where the joists are. It's likely your joists are imperial and they obviously don't accommodate metric boards. On top of that, even if your joists are metric, there is no guarantee the original fitter was critical with his centres. Ascertain which way your joists go. Always board perpendicular to joists. To find the joists simply screw into the existing ceiling until you hit a joist(Start at the perimeter). Then screw to either side to eventually determine the centre of the joist. Then find the next joist centre. Measure the centres. This which will give you an educated guess as to where the subsequent joists reside. Again you should screw to find the centres of each joist.

Do this to both sides of the room then chalk a line for each joist.

This gives you 2 important and necessary pieces of information. Firstly and most obviously it gives you a visual idea of how to board the ceiling so that board ends can meet on a joist close to 50/50(or enough to 'get a fix') which guarantees a flush joint. Secondly it gives you the joist centres. This is important because the centres govern what board to use. I'll ignore 9mm boards because they're sh*t. I'll focus on 12.5mm and 15mm boards. 12.5mm for fixing at a maximum 450mm centres. Greater than 450mm up to a maximum 600mm centres use 15mm board.

The above is an absolute minimum. There is plasterboard (and accompanying systems) to meet a huge array of specifications. Cosmetic/minimal(as above) to Fire resilience to Sound insulation to Durability. Consider when using plasterboard with a little more expense you can achieve much more than cosmetic value.

Also, when boarding ceilings...get help! The pictures you've posted are shockingly rough. It's fixable... but with a little care it never needed to end up in that state. I'm not having a go at you. It's so bad it made me laugh. I commend you for having a go. You've got to make mistakes to learn from them.

 

[23vc]

Dead old thread but I stumbled across it so someone else might who needs advice so I'll contribute just on the off chance this may be helpful to someone at some point.

This is a complete hash unfortunately. But completely forgivable to someone who is none the wiser. I'll try and highlight some common mistakes and in this case obvious mistakes.

This is 'overboarding' which basically means applying an additional skin to the existing 'skin' as opposed to boarding directly to the joists. This demonstrates the first problem with the OP's post. When overboarding you absolutely must locate exactly where the joists are. It's likely your joists are imperial and they obviously don't accommodate metric boards. On top of that, even if your joists are metric, there is no guarantee the original fitter was critical with his centres. Ascertain which way your joists go. Always board perpendicular to joists. To find the joists simply screw into the existing ceiling until you hit a joist(Start at the perimeter). Then screw to either side to eventually determine the centre of the joist. Then find the next joist centre. Measure the centres. This which will give you an educated guess as to where the subsequent joists reside. Again you should screw to find the centres of each joist.

Do this to both sides of the room then chalk a line for each joist.

This gives you 2 important and necessary pieces of information. Firstly and most obviously it gives you a visual idea of how to board the ceiling so that board ends can meet on a joist close to 50/50(or enough to 'get a fix') which guarantees a flush joint. Secondly it gives you the joist centres. This is important because the centres govern what board to use. I'll ignore 9mm boards because they're sh*t. I'll focus on 12.5mm and 15mm boards. 12.5mm for fixing at a maximum 450mm centres. Greater than 450mm up to a maximum 600mm centres use 15mm board.

The above is an absolute minimum. There is plasterboard (and accompanying systems) to meet a huge array of specifications. Cosmetic/minimal(as above) to Fire resilience to Sound insulation to Durability. Consider when using plasterboard with a little more expense you can achieve much more than cosmetic value.

Also, when boarding ceilings...get help! The pictures you've posted are shockingly rough. It's fixable... but with a little care it never needed to end up in that state. I'm not having a go at you. It's so bad it made me laugh. I commend you for having a go. You've got to make mistakes to learn from them.

He already knows how to find the joists, he’s already using the right thickness of board. He already knows where he went wrong, his ceiling can still be skimmed and will be fine, and I doubt the parting shot of “it made me laugh” helps him much either.

 

[fenny666]

@23vc Just tried to provide an informative answer based on what was presented mate with the idea being it could be beneficial to someone stumbling upon this thread in the future. Hence why suggested which boards to use based on determined centres etc. Hence why I described how to find joist centres based on one of the pics that shows an abutment with boards that aren't fixed flush. Not being an arse mate, just trying to be helpful. It did make me laugh. There's nowt wrong with that. We all make mistakes. Laugh 'em off and learn.

@kevinsmbuk There's a good chance following a wall is not going to follow joists. Even with new builds. I'll often start with a 'rip' less than a boards width and work off that or a full board lined up to the joist centres set less than a boards distance away so I can cut back in to the perimeters.

From a DIY perspective this is a 2 man job all day. It looks like you've used square edged boards. I'd recommend using tapered edge boards and you can finish it yourself with tape and joint. Plasterers will hate me for saying it but you could finish that ceiling with tape and joint as a diyer better than a time served plasterer.