Bay window ceiling dropped

[tonysab]

Hi we had an upstairs conversion done a while back and one of the problems which has come to light since concerns the small ceilings above the bay windows in our downstairs rooms.

In summary we had the upstairs roof removed and gable ends built front and back. I have tried to illustrate this in the attached pictures.

However the bay windows have a small part of the ceiling which is lower than the rest of the room, just for the bay part. Now this ceiling has dropped at the front (window) end, in fact the only thing which seems to be holding it up at all is the fact there are, would you believe it, some plastic hooks stuck onto the inside of the window frame and it is resting on these. I can push it up with my hand approximately one inch to where it previously was. My guess with this is that previously this would have been attached to the wooden joists, but these presumably have been removed now. Above this is a small lip of tiles (see attached photos), so I am not sure what if anything we would be able to attach these to now. I am sure the builder would/should have noticed this at the time but we have had a few disagreements with him since and he's since disappeared from the local area.

I have read about lath and plaster which sounds like this could be what we have, the house originates from the 1930s.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

Untitled

• tonysab
• 22 Sep 2014
• 1

Untitled

• tonysab
• 22 Sep 2014
• 1

 

[catlad]

Your bays would have been getting some support from the rafters which has now been taken away.

 

[MidsTW]

Some internal pics may help but as catlad said the original bay frame would have been attached to the roofing beams/rafters which no doubt have been heavily modified or removed.

 

[tonysab]

Thanks. I will get some internal pics put up. This was my assumption as to what has happened. The question is, can anything be done to remedy this? I'm not exactly sure what would now be above the ceiling exactly. Thanks again.

 

[catlad]

It would probably be easier to lift the floor upstairs to have a look.

 

[tonysab]

Hi sorry for the delay, here is a pic which attempts to show the problem. So the small sub ceiling bit is what I am referring to here, to which the curtain rail is attached. This is what has come away and can be pushed up by hand (you can just make out the level of the piece of wood the rail is attached to on the left has dropped). The trouble is that I think above it is now the roof tiles lip as shown in the initial photos. I guess I will have to remove some of these tiles to ascertain exactly what is underneath, although I suspect there is just nothing there to attach to the ceiling.

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• tonysab
• 13 Oct 2014
• 1

 

[Beefpotnoodle]

The roof tiles must be supported somehow and for that matter so does the gable end. Is it brick built of wood framed. Either way, take down the 'sub' ceiling as you call I. If there's nothing there put a frame in, plasterboard and skim it. If its falling down might as well remove it and sort out the problem you find, stop guessing!