Best ceiling height

[Ed_]

I've heard it said that 2400mm is the best ceiling height, because that is the standard plaster board size.

 

I've been doing some thinking (dangerous, I know) and wondering about the practicality of going for say 100mm more and having a gap below the plasterboard that is covered by the skirting, see image.

 

This would provide me with an easy conduit around the edge of all the rooms, accessed simply by unscrewing the skirting.

Want to add a socket? Unscrew skirting and tap directly into the ring main.

Want to run a network cable. Same.

 

Anyone done this?

[Kelvin]

My service void has a horizontal run around the walls between two battens. Makes adding extra sockets really easy. 

[G and J]

Crumbs what an interesting idea.  Presumably the battens are far enough apart to fit a back box in without cutting into them.  Do you put small loops every so often to give you slack for new sockets or pull new cable in?

[G and J]

3 hours ago, Ed_ said:

I've heard it said that 2400mm is the best ceiling height, because that is the standard plaster board size.

 

I've been doing some thinking (dangerous, I know) and wondering about the practicality of going for say 100mm more and having a gap below the plasterboard that is covered by the skirting, see image.

 

This would provide me with an easy conduit around the edge of all the rooms, accessed simply by unscrewing the skirting.

Want to add a socket? Unscrew skirting and tap directly into the ring main.

Want to run a network cable. Same.

 

Anyone done this?

Won’t that mean there’s nothing to stop your skirting warping?

[Kelvin]

4 minutes ago, G and J said:

Crumbs what an interesting idea.  Presumably the battens are far enough apart to fit a back box in without cutting into them.  Do you put small loops every so often to give you slack for new sockets or pull new cable in?

Looks like this. 
 

[G and J]

And will you be somehow putting slack in between sockets?

[Kelvin]

You can buy skirting with a channel cut in it for services. 
 

What you can’t see is I also ran a batten horizontally at the bottom to give me something to nail the skirting to. 

Edited July 4 by Kelvin

[Kelvin]

2 minutes ago, G and J said:

And will you be somehow putting slack in between sockets?

That was 10 months ago. We moved in today. 

There’s some slack in the cable but not much. I planned out where nearly all our furniture and appliances etc  were going etc and 3D rendered it. I also put plenty of sockets in and all double sockets. We won’t need to add any extra in anywhere. 

[G and J]

Congratulations on moving in.  Hope it went well. 

[Alan Ambrose]

>>> 2400mm is the best ceiling height

 

I think there’s a lot to be said for 2.7 or even higher - if you look at grand old houses, they look grand partly because everything is oversize compared with ‘normal’ houses. Sure it would take a couple of extra hours to plaster - not a big deal in the big scheme.

 

Yes, I definitely agree with making an easy service channel - I’m planning to put a horizontal cable tray in around socket height.

Edited July 5 by Alan Ambrose

[Russell griffiths]

You shouldn’t run a cable behind the skirting. 
it is not a safe zone, all electrical wires need to be in the safe zones as set out in the electrical regs. 

[garrymartin]

47 minutes ago, Alan Ambrose said:

I think there’s a lot to be said for 2.7 or even higher

We have 2.7m ceilings in our architect brief. Not only do I think it looks better, it also allows a dropped ceiling from the 2.7m where you either a) want to install something (Fan Coil Unit in the entrance space to bedrooms anyone?) or b) want to differentiate a space (open plan areas, lighting features).

 

27 minutes ago, Russell griffiths said:

You shouldn’t run a cable behind the skirting. 
it is not a safe zone,

Russell is spot on. Also, I wouldn't personally choose to run behind a skirting, but if you do choose to do that, you must "create" the safe zone by installing some sort of electrical socket in line with the skirting void. Having said that, it is likely to look terrible if you do! 😉

[jack]

1 hour ago, Alan Ambrose said:

>>> 2400mm is the best ceiling height

 

I think there’s a lot to be said for 2.7 or even higher - if you look at grand old houses, they look grand partly because everything is oversize compared with ‘normal’ houses. Sure it would take a couple of extra hours to plaster - not a big deal in the big scheme.

 

Came here to say this.

 

Within the limits of our height restrictions, we allocated more height to the downstairs ceilings. We ended up with 2.8 m downstairs and about 2.55 m upstairs. Massive difference in feeling between the two.

We also visited friends in their new house recently (a full gut-and-refurb which we hadn't seen before they did the work). It has a large open-plan area downstairs with 2.4 m ceilings. It isn't helped by the massive array of downlights, but the ceiling height is genuinely distracting and makes the whole area feel constrained.

 

Downlights work even worse with low ceilings, because there's less space for the beam to spread. Standing under a downlight at a party isn't that nice given it's not that far from your head!

[LSB]

how does this work with planning, if you have higher rooms them isn't the whole house hight.

 

also, isn't there something now about sockets being 'accessible' i.e. in the middle of the wall.

 

[Iceverge]

2.7m downstairs here and 2.65 upstairs here. 

 

The best ceiling height seems to be a factor of room size. A very large room with a 2.4m ceiling will seem very low whilst a small room will be ok. 

 

I wouldn't be plasterboarding the wall like that anyway, terrible for airtightness. Wet plaster for me every time. 

[garrymartin]

25 minutes ago, LSB said:

also, isn't there something now about sockets being 'accessible' i.e. in the middle of the wall.

There is, but they are distances measured from the floor level so the ceiling height is irrelevant.

[LSB]

21 minutes ago, garrymartin said:

There is, but they are distances measured from the floor level so the ceiling height is irrelevant.

I get that this was about ceiling height, but I thought OP was talking about putting sockets at skirting level, maybe I mis-understood

 

[garrymartin]

14 minutes ago, LSB said:

I get that this was about ceiling height, but I thought OP was talking about putting sockets at skirting level, maybe I mis-understood

 

I don't think the intent was sockets at skirting level, but running cables behind the skirting. In order for that to be compliant, I pointed out that they would need electrical sockets of some sort at that same level to create a "safe zone".

[JohnMo]

We just went vaulted every room. Except the lounge which has 45 Deg ceiling up to about 6m tall, the rest of the house has a 12 Deg ceilings, back of the house starts at 2.4m and from around 3.5m tall.

 

16 hours ago, Ed_ said:

having a gap below the plasterboard that is covered by the skirting, see image.

Don't understand estimate how many cables end up being needed, plus as mentioned you need to comply with regs.

[Alan Ambrose]

Is there any regs requirement (or sensible reason) to keep mains cables separated from, for instance, network cables.

 

I know you can't let them share a conduit, so it seems contradictory to then let them happily share the same bit of behind-plasterboard space.

[garrymartin]

20 minutes ago, Alan Ambrose said:

Is there any regs requirement (or sensible reason) to keep mains cables separated from, for instance, network cables.

I believe 50mm is the minimum separation (not 100% sure) unless the network cable has the same protection characteristics as the mains cables. 300mm is recommended though.

[JohnMo]

2 hours ago, Alan Ambrose said:

Is there any regs requirement (or sensible reason) to keep mains cables separated from, for instance, network cables

I was involved finding out why equipment on an offshore facility wasn't working correctly, would randomly shutdown, get multiple random alarms for events that could happen at the same time. The cause power and instrument cables in the same cable tray. Keep them away from each other would be my advice. Once you have them installed and the house decorated not an easy or cheap fix.

[eandg]

2700 is far superior to 2400 and extra costs are pretty negligible. As said about also let's you drop a ceiling if need be (we actually went 2750 then used resilience bars). 

[G and J]

Hmmmmm.  I’m now feeling like a bit of a troglodyte.  Our planning, entirely reasonably methinks, requires our ridge to be roughly the same height as next door’s ridge. 
 

That means 16’ of room between upstairs and down unless I go for collared trusses and chamfered rooms upstairs, which I am not keen on.  So it’s probably standard height both floors. 
 

Perhaps I’ll just think of it as homely (and not invite Kevin McC round)

[Iceverge]

51 minutes ago, G and J said:

Hmmmmm.  I’m now feeling like a bit of a troglodyte.  Our planning, entirely reasonably methinks, requires our ridge to be roughly the same height as next door’s ridge. 
 

That means 16’ of room between upstairs and down unless I go for collared trusses and chamfered rooms upstairs, which I am not keen on.  So it’s probably standard height both floors. 
 

Perhaps I’ll just think of it as homely (and not invite Kevin McC round)

 

Scissors trusses may be a choice if you did want the vaulted look. 

 

400mm is quite generous for the floor build up. You could probably slim it down a bit in various rooms with some top hung posi joists. 

 

18mm flooring,

220mm posi joists

12.5mm plasterboard x 2

3mm Skim

266mm

 

Or 

18mm flooring,

220mm timber joists

17mm resilient bars

12.5mm plasterboard X 2

3mm Skim

285mm