Recent new Build - Hollow upstairs walls? No studs?

[Andehh]

I am looking at re-doing a bathroom, and I imagine pulling off the current plastic sheet tiles will decimate the plasterboard/wall they are on. As a result I am looking at literally cutting this wall in half, and removing the entire board the tiles are fixed to, and replacing it with a water resistant plasterboard (which it currently is I imagine) then a decent tile backer board.

The issue is that this wall is entirely hollow. There are no studs inside of it, nor braces, it is just fixed at the top and along the bottom. I know this through a wall at the opposite end of the house which i dropped a cable down. I drilled a hole from the loft into it then literally dangled the cable and grabbed it at the bottom.

My issue is, how do I replace half of the bathroom wall if I can only fix the plasterboard/tile backer board to the top & bottom?

Googling empty partition wall, hollow partition wall etc etc brings up nothing, so I obviously don't have the right name for this type of wall. The house is a recent build form 2007.

Cheers.

 

[cjard]

Have you attempted to pass something through it horizontally (as in drill into the door case and attempt to reach the outer wall of the house with a fishing rod - not drill from one room, 100 mm through into the next room)? Studs are usually vertical, so the free passage of a cable through a wall doesn't necessarily mean that there are no studs, only that there are no noggings

 

[theprinceofdarkness]

Buy/hire/borrow a metal detector or a compass, go over the whole area and mark out where you find metal, this where the fixings are into the vertical studs. I am sure a pattern will emerge.
How are you going to get the new seal between the old and new boards?
Frank

 

[Andehh]

Thanks guys, pure vertical joists are a good point.

Buy/hire/borrow a metal detector or a compass, go over the whole area and mark out where you find metal, this where the fixings are into the vertical studs. I am sure a pattern will emerge.
How are you going to get the new seal between the old and new boards?
Frank

That was my next question actually, what the 'done' thing is for joining two plasterboard sheets together, If anyone could advise I would be grateful.

Cheers