You may have noticed in one of my last posts that the ceiling joists had gained some extra pieces of wood – more commonly known as noggins. These are small lengths of wood that fit firmly in between the joists. Not only do these add more areas to screw plasterboard into as every edge will need to be secured, but they also help to stop the joists from moving, which is turn helps to stop the ceiling cracking. Aaaand if you remember this post, we certainly had a cracking ceiling and some of these joists did had a little bit of movement too.
We used 3 lengths of this stud timber to make the noggins, at £2.50 each this wasn’t overly costly at all. However due to this house being so old, the joists have moved so much over the years that they no longer run parallel to each other, which meant each cut had to be measured individually, which was preeetty time consuming. These were then secured in place with two screws either side. Each noggin was positioned in a staggered formation, the same way we intend on installing the plasterboard. Admittedly our work isn’t perfect as you will see – but hey we’re amateurs learning on the job….
Top tip for this DIY: don’t let a noggin fall on your noggin. Grant found this endlessly hilarious; maybe it’s a warning that I need a hard hat.
The final preparation for plasterboard was a boring one; I had to remove about a bazillion nails from the joists to make sure the surface is flat. This was slightly tedious to say the least, and with these nails being so old, many of them snapped, or the heads just popped off. I got there in the end though; the ceiling is now fully prepped for plasterboard! Hurrah!
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