Home DIY

struggled mightily with some extremely shit and bowed ceilings but my uncle and I managed to get all 3 bedrooms overboarded over the weekend in the end

we also pulled down an extremely bowed and failing ceiling in the living room extension to uncover about a million rat/mouse poops and insulation full of little tunnels so we had to remove and bag the whole lot. luckily the room is outside of the main house structure so I'm gonna disinfect the lot with spray, fill every hole i can see with steel wool and then expanding foam all the gaps and then I need to figure out what insulation I need to replace it with then I'm going to hire a board lifter for a weekend to finish that room and the dining room ceiling by myself. even with 2 people using the props was a nightmare so I'm glad I avoided trying to do that on my own.

we also knocked back the blown plaster in the fireplace to the brickwork and have a bonding coat that's just shy of the surrounding walls so I can come back and hit it with a top layer of easifill 60 later this week.

am exhausted but feeling good about the project again. poop ceiling bummed me out hard yesterday but getting rid of all the contaminated stuff this morning helped a lot as it was all disposed of at the waste disposal centre by mid afternoon.

these things were basically all of the major blockers for getting on with the final wall prep and redecorating.

by end of the month I'm hoping to have a couple of finished ceilings and some primed walls at least. the ceilings wont be perfect by any stretch but it's an old house and they were totally fucked so this is about as good as we'd get them without pulling everything down (and we discovered they were mostly all lath/plaster that had been overboarded already so that would have been a lot). also the joist spacing and past damp issues meant some sections needed a spray and pray approach for finding fixing points that would hold but we threw in some grab adhesive on the back of the trickier panels so its about as solid as we'll get it.

for now tape and jointing will do for finish. if we really hate the look later on we'll see if we hate them enough to pay to have them properly skimmed (right now the budget says wait to see how much everything else costs us still). i think we'll end up living with a little imperfection and just be happy we could get it to this point.

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but seriously. need help with figuring out what to put in that ceiling cavity now (links would be great). all the joists in the house are on 37cm spacing (but a very sloppy 37cm spacing at that). so i'm going to be cutting a lot of insulation no matter what type I use. I didnt get round to measuring how deep the space is up there yet either.

That's really great work, I can't imagine how tiring it must have been. The satisfaction you'll feel from having done it yourself will outweigh any small issues I reckon.

If your finished ceilings aren't perfect, you could go for a nice textured paint finish, or there are decorative tiles you can get to stick over the imperfections.

Thank you and also @hugo7 @Ben6899 @aggi

It was used for both drilling holes through thick walls inc stone, and breaking up concrete. I’m inclined to go for a very big one (einhell or one of the big titans), but I don’t want it to be too heavy for my dad to be able to use.

you need arms like that to even get the silicone to the end of the tube.

Change the ratio on the gun then!

(You can get guns with a ratio that’s better for thick stuff, or the opposite, or spendier guns with adjustable ratios).

That’s a hard weekend. Really good job though. I’d use something hard like kingspan/celotex not a soft roll of rockwool or whatever. I think it is more expensive but it’s easier to deal with, easier to cut, and you can probably use all the spare offcuts still.

Disclaimer: I work in an office

fill every hole i can see with steel wool and then expanding foam all the gaps

Pro-tip: wear two pairs of latex gloves to do this.

Unlike filling in a hole, you'll probably end up trying to mush the wire wool in a bit and inevitably end up with it on your hands. It's such sticky stuff that you'll end up coming into contact with some of it once you've taken the first set of gloves off.

For this sort of job you're probably best getting a dedicated gun + cleaner.

Good work BTW. These things are always hard going and longer than expected.

Before I looked at the photo I read your post and presumed that @dbr had arms small enough in diameter to fit up the tube.

poop ceiling

Better out that in! But seriously, good work.

Just buy a can of expanding foam cleaner - it’s a revelation for getting it off you.
You’ll need a can of it if you buy a dedicated gun anyway.
https://www.screwfix.com/p/no-nonsense-foam-gun-cleaner-500ml/60133?

I've got this one (which was only £50 a few years back) and it is pretty heavy.
https://www.screwfix.com/p/titan-ttb653sds-5-9kg-electric-sds-plus-drill-230-240v/6846h
But, if you're using it for breaking up concrete you probably want something with a bit of heft behind it.

I removed some old wall paper only to discover this. Behind this sit the kitchen and drain pipes from toilet upstairs. Do I need a specialist to come and evaluate the damage or is there anything I can do myself, hoping to get this room plaster.

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The forum recommended SDS white Makita in box for £109 is pretty good.
re the foam gun the roughneck professional gun is the one to get, basically you don’t have to buy any cleaner as long as you close and wipe the end with white spirit after each use. have changed about half a dozen cans and not had any blockages. the tube is lined to help stop it sticking.
and learn how to change the can properlyas it can be messy if you don’t do it correctly.

am going to measure the depth of my joists to the top of the battens and order PIR board to fit.

to stop the rodents returning and making it home again I've ordered some 6mm wire mesh and will staple it up as a barrier at the end of each joist run to block access to the insulation cavity between joists. coupled with closing up the possible entry points I can see along the outside edges with steel wool and foam hopefully it'll be enough to discourage their presence again.

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Can you go any smaller than 6mm? A mouse can fit through a 6 or 7mm hole, so that will stop rats but not mice.

i was going to double up the layers which should make it much less possible and then I may hit it with a smear of expanding foam just to close it up.

Id probably want to protect any pipes or wires there too if possible- the infestation might have been historic could you roughly date it? Any fresh shit?

You’ve done some good work there but proceed with caution.
If you’re insulating that you need a good gap between the top of the insulation and the osb, with good ventilation. Otherwise you will get moisture building up in there, more than you might imagine.
If you have the space above that roof, put the insulation on top of it rather than within it.

it's a cold flat roof. above the wood is the top of the extension

previously it was insulated with a few inches of pink fluffy insulation with I'm guessing 10cm polystyrene slabs below it.

i haven't measured yet but I think i need a min 50mm gap above the insulation so 100-150mm thick pir is what I'll probably need, I think I also should have a vapor barrier on the underside of the joists between the insulation and the plasterboard. the previous ceiling didnt have one and is probably what caused it to sag so badly we had to take it down.

Definitely go with a vapour barrier - if you can spare the head height cover the whole ceiling in supafoil then cross-batten before plasterboarding. That will give you even more insulation and a vapour barrier if you tape the joints.
It’s good (vital!) you’ve got 50mm above the PIR - it’s a pain in the arse but i’d drill through the firrings to encourage cross-ventilation as much as possible too.

thanks this is all useful in organising the process in my head.

the joist hangers on the previously sagging side are really poorly installed so they have a gap under the joist of a cm or so and hang down hindering placing the boards flat all the way up to the wall so cross battening will actually help me sidestep that issue nicely. we were gonna overboard the old ceiling so some loss of height is not anything i wasn't already prepared for either.

is there a downpipe on the other/outside of this wall?
if there is, worth having a look at what it’s doing when it rains next - could be a simple as the downpipe coming loose from the gutter at the connection splashing water on the wall.

dehumidifier on the inside possibly worthwhile in the meantime if you can.

I am just about to put my basic decking together. Will anyone tell me I don't need to bother treating (either the frame, or the boards, or ideally both) with anything as pressurized timber should be fine? I assume the advice is apply 'deck protect' or similar to everything liberally. But obviously I'd rather not if I can get away with it....

I would at least treat the cut ends of timber