I have seen the future - Dry Lining

We have made better progress this week, and I have reached the length of the room with the new, dry lined ceiling.

Although the roof has been insulated already, with a multi layered foil, we decided that you can never have enough insulation ( saving the planet) so we have opted for insulated plasterboard for the ceiling. This is formed of a slightly thinner plasterboard sheet ( 10mm) with a slab of polystyrene( 40mm ) on the back. It is no heavier than ordinary plasterboard, and is easier to work with as the insulation gives it more strength. It even bounces if you drop it off the top of a ladder !

It takes a while to fit , as none of the joists are straight, so you have to take a lot of measurements, and then take it up the ladder to try and squeeze it in. Typically I've had to do this five our six times for each sheet. Some of the older joists are round, so you have to try to remember to measure the gap 50 mm out, where the surface of the plasterboard will be rather than measuring the roof slats.

Another complication, is that you can only get 70mm screws, which are hard to screw into the roof slats, so you have to screw a few in to hold the sheet, then take them all out one by one, drill a guide hole and screw them back again.

The shorter sheets in the back of this photo are the result of a top tip from my friendly builder Mr H, who always fits the sheets a width at a time, rather than trying to go from perlin to perlin like I was doing. This method ensures that you have a bevelled edge on each side of a joint which should, in theory, give you a smoother, and invisible joint. We will see!