Looking to change the lights in my bathrooms to downlighters. Only way I can see of doing this is to drop the ceilings to access the wiring (no access from above).

Can do the plasterboard myself but anyone know the going rate to get the ceiling skimmed afterwards? Time-wise, is it better to pay for someone to do the whole job (with the exception of the electrical work?)

Ta very much. Matter of urgency as there’s not enough light to read the paper in the bath.

You need candles. Four is the traditional number to ask for in the shop.

Electrican should be able to manily work through the holes they cut for the down lighters, surely – it’s mainly just extending the existing circuit? If they cut holes near the joists they can drill through them from the downlight hole to run cables?

Hmm… didn’t even think of that. Just sketched it out and with a right angle adapter for the drill and a cable rod it should work nicely. Patch hole in middle of ceiling and job done.

Brilliant, makes life easier and should get it done today. 🙂

🙂

engineer by chance ? – me too and my dad always tells i overthink things before i do them. Once you start doing it it becomes obvious that a new celing isnt the way

if i can do it with a bit of latteral thinking without dropping a celing im sure you can 😉

cable rods are your friend – you already have power up there to the rose – use that as your mains in feed and just feed out to your downlighters. be sure to fit sufficient protection round the top of your downlighters – use 240v GU10s not 12 volt mr16 pish and look into LEDS as oppose halogens – 4watt vs 40watts not to be sniiffed at.

only issue you might have is that if your in england where your not trusted to fart in a wet zone youll need a spark to do it.

Thanks trail rat, looks like I have been over-thinking it a bit! Not engineer – albeit a physicist in a past life – and this looks straightforward.

One step ahead of you on the LED front, can’t abide 50W GU10 lamps and would ban them in a flash if I had the option. Easier to get fire-rated IP65 downlights and stick LEDs in them.

Ledhut doing cheap smd leds – much nicer beam spread than my osram single optic led moved my osrams to the utility room in the end

I just did this in my bathroom, partly to add lights (flat roof above)and partly because there was some naf artex and old water damage. I looked at right angled drill bits and cable rods but couldn’t be bothered in the end. The artex also had a swirls around the center of the ceiling where the rose was and it was always going to look bodged.

It is dead easy to DIY, rip the old down, do the cabling, screw the new boards up, tape with scrim tape and then fill with easifill before sanding and painting. It also gives you the chance to put some extra insulation in the ceiling if you need it.

Unless your bathroom is massive, there should only be 1 or maybe 2 joins to fill with 2.4 x 1.2 plasterboards.

Cost me about £30 in materials, it is a bit dusty and messy though.

dont scrim your wall to celing joints. it will crack.

use paper tape or even better for the amateur – metal inlayed paper tape – holds the angle better 😀

ive just over boarded and taped my hall with insulated board thanks to the joy of finding artex under a walpaper celing – who wallpapers a celing? fudds

Minor fudd compared to the artex installer

true – but artex was at least fashionable – way back when

as far as im aware wallpapered celings were never fashionable – just a bodge to hide stuff…..like most wallpapering done these days mind you 😉