Poly ceiling tiles and lath and plaster ceiling

[Skittlebug]

Will the ceiling come down when I rip the tiles off? Scared. What's the cost of new ceilings?

We had exactly this. They came off really easily but we did have to re-plaster. There is a reason they have hidden the ceiling behind them!

Good luck with getting those tiles off- we couldn't manage it. DH ended up re-plating the whole ceiling (i.e. covering rather than removing it all). It was impossible to get the ceiling flat and smooth once the tiles were off, as there's were five big blobs of old adhesive on each tile. Nightmare.

One of our ceilings like this fell down! We discovered that there was a 2” thick layer of heavy plaster below the original lath and plaster, then the polystyrene tiles stuck on that, and it weighed a ton. Very lucky that no-one was siting in the room at that time.

Our builder pulled down the entire ceiling (very messy and dusty), put up a new plasterboard ceiling then had it skimmed, along with the walls.

I had this and quite a few large lumps of ceiling did come down.

I got the builder to reboard all the ceilings and then had them plastered. It was a bit of a faff and costly but worth it as the new flat ceilings looked great.

Eeeek I didn't think they'd be hiding a nasty surprise, I just thought they were bad taste the ceiling is bowing in one bedroom so I reckon the whole ceiling will come down...
Gosh, lucky it didn't take someone out... what happened you heard a bang and the ceiling was down? What's the cost of putting a new ceiling up? Hope I can get away with overboarding in the other bedrooms and landing

If you have a ceiling bowing in a bedroom it could be a leak (roof or pipe). I had this in a rental property and one day the whole ceiling came down and brought the living room ceiling down with it.

I bought an old house which had poly tiles in a bedroom. They had to come off because of the fire risk. My ceiling was scruffy but solid, so I had a layer of insulation and then a new ceiling put immediately below but attached to the joists.

That avoided the mess of pulling the old ceiling down, made the room much warmer and gave a good finish. It wasn't too costly..

Large part of my sons lather and plaster ceiling started to bow. Thought it was going to be a nightmare but just had it overboarded. Basically they deep-tack boards into the beams which means if it tries to give way the boards and tacks will support it. Didn't cost much at all and actually my decorators ended up doing it...they were experienced firm who said they did it a lot. Thought it was going to be thousands but was a couple of hundred quid including full redecoration I think? But not covered by insurance annoyingly.

@Skittlebug

Will the ceiling come down when I rip the tiles off? Scared. What's the cost of new ceilings?

Mine did (wall paper, then chunks of plaster). If it’s 1 room, cost to cut out ceiling, replace with plasterboard, skim, paint... maybe £500-800?

I paid £8k in London for this for all ceilings in a 60m2 2 bed flat (so 5 rooms - kitchen, sitting room, bathroom as well as bedroom), but included taking down& replacing all internal walls, plus putting spotlights in kitchen and bath: London prices but v v competitive at the time

Prepare for mess and dust you’ll never believe ... if it’s NOT a fire risk could you put a false ceiling under? Less work and mess

Btw: you might see join marks from plaster at a later date, they can be painted over