Maximum Luminaire Weight Supported by Plasterboard Ceiling

[johnduffell]

Cut a 70mm hole in the centre of the ply (ply doesnt tend to split) then cut a slot from the hole to the outer edge of the ply. This enables you to put a fairly large piece of wood up the hole (if that makes sense

Nice ideai and I bet you love those metal or wooden puzzles you always get at Christmas where you have a load of impossibly shaped pieces and have to make it into an interlocking shape!

Can you not just use super long screws to pass through the cavity and screw into the laminate floor above? If the screws poke through the laminate just stick a book over the exposed dangerous point

Sounds like a joke but that actually happened when the shop below our flat fitted cctv monitor near the front door, a few nice sharp points looking through our carpet, taken off by the landlord with a grinder at our end and that's the job done!

 

[richy3333]

Oh my word that's crazy and also funny!

 

[mydigitalhome]

From memory it 10kg per2m max on plasterboard without noggins sure someone knows where I have seen it.

 

[Dave5678]

From memory it 10kg per2m max on plasterboard without noggins sure someone knows where I have seen it.

Thanks, that's a useful figure to know.

 

[Jjc]

Are there are any regulations/guidance on the maximum weight that a luminaire can be if it is only supported by the plasterboard ceiling and not fixed to any joists or noggins?

I have a customer who would like a (heavy, but currently unweighed) light fitting from their old house fitted in the new one, but examination of the existing pendant reveals that it is supported only by a circular dry lining box. The dry lining box has words stamped on it something like the following: "Warning. Ceiling determines maximum load. Max 3kg". Does this 3kg come from some official guidance or is it just something the manufacturer of this particular dry lining box has come up with?

The plasterboard is 15mm thick and the mounting bracket for the wanted light is wider than the dry lining box so the fixings would be into the plasterboard rather than using the dry lining box. The room above has a laminate floor so I have no access from above, only through the 70mm hole that has been cut out for the dry lining box. Potentially, I could feed some strips of ply into the hole to try to spread the load and then put wall anchors or similar through both plasterboard and ply, but at the end of the day it is still just the plasterboard that is taking all of the weight.

Is this job feasible or must the customer be restricted to lightweight fittings until such a time as the ceiling can be reinforced properly?

Common sense prevails here.