False Ceiling Above Stairs

[hedgehog144]

Hi

Looking for advice on how to deal with the large space above the stairs in our house (Victorian). The stairs were previously wallpapered so have stripped this away to find a false ceiling above the staircase; this was a sheet of plywood tacked to a frame (1.0 x 1.9m with a single 'cross-beam' half way along) papered over the top with woodchip. The rest of the walls are in pretty bad shape so had intended to fit plasterboard to the existing frame and then have the false ceiling and walls skimmed.

I have been reading around the plasterboarding and am concerned that unless I build additional battens into the frame (to screw the plasterboard onto) the boards are at risk of sagging with time and cracking the skim. I will also be working by myself so am not particularly looking forward to negotiating and securing big sheets of board above the stairs!

I wonder whether it would be okay to have the walls skimmed then, when dry, reinstate a plywood or MDF ceiling (then paint this). Would this work or are there reasons (e.g. fire) that it would be superior to plasterboard and skim the ceiling? If so, would I need to add battens as I suspect or might a combination of a sloping ceiling and using thick plasterboard sufficiently reduce the risk of sagging?

Thanks in advance.

 

[KenGMac]

hedgehog144, good evening.

So long as the existing wall mounted battens are [about] 50.mm wide you can if needed add a couple of new cross battens between them to use as additional support for Plasterboard.

I assume the stair is 1.0.m wide?

To make handling / fixing of the Plasterboard easier by putting the new plasterboard up in two bits each the width of the stair?

And you could make up a "dead man" timber prop ?? A suitably length of timber batten with a timber cross head on top, place the prop at the junction of a step and tread, so long as you have measured it correctly the prop + cross head will take the weight of the board and allow you some degree of freedom for fixing. As long as the prop is at 90 degrees to the ceiling it should work??

Ken.

 

[foxhole]

You could use 6mm cement board , very rigid and with correct primer will take a skim.

 

[hedgehog144]

Thanks for the advice. I think I will go ahead with adding new cross battens and plasterboard. I think I will use a T bracket screwed into the top of the new and old timbers to secure the new battens as I can't properly access the existing frame. Good tip on the timber prop, that sounds ideal!

I hadn't considered cement board but as I don't know just how securely the existing framework is secured to the wall (though it will hold my weight on a 'tug test') I wonder if the added weight would offset any advantage here. Thank you for suggesting it though!