Thread: Ceiling Battens?

John,

Always use battens!!

If for no other reason than the bottom chord of trusses are (should be) pre-cambered to enable them to settle level, and particulary in a hip/valley situation the truss loads will not be equal, therefore differing amounts of deflection!

The trusses SHOULD be fixed to the top plates of the walls to enable movement to occur initally.

Fit off your battens level after the roof has been installed and all should be Jake!

Metal is probably easier and cheaper these days.

Cheers,

P

Personally I would screw and glue the gyprock up onto steel battens. I find it pretty straightforward. Get your battens up, get some mates around with cordless drills, plaster screws, glue and gyprock drill bits (these are special bits which make sure you dont break the paper on the gyprock sheets)

Make sure your battens are square and circle the outside of the ceiling. Also try to screw as much as possible in the 'indents' in the plaster although hiding the holes is not such a drama

Cheers

Trusses are usually set at 600mm, 900mm, or 1200mm depending on the type of material used for the trusses e.g. timber, (Pine or hardwood) or steel and the type of roofing e.g. tiles or metal.

12mm Plaster board requires 600mm centres on the battens and 10mm plater board requires 450mm centres on the battens.

The best thing about metal battens they come with clips that nail or screw to the side of the truss and allow you to string line them and get the ceiling level

Rondo is probably the biggest manufacturers of ceiling battens.

As Biting says metal is probably cheaper and easier to work and timber went out with button up boots.

When fixing you should use a screwdriver with a nose cone on it so it sets the screw at the correct depth.

When using metal battens you glue and screw the plaster board using "S" point self drilling screws. Boral and other sites will give you details on how to fix it or any hardware store will have fixing instruction brochures.

Originally Posted by Barry_White

went out with button up boots.

Gees, talk about being a downer....

Al

Why is that Al? Are you still wearing them.

I have built many houses, units, townhouses etc. I have never used battens on roof trusses and neither do any of the project home builders. I have used battens on suspended ceiling systems (manufactured by Rondo) but that is different to this situation.

You fix directly to the trusses. If you are working by yourself or with an inexperienced person then hire a lifter from any hire shop. It will make the whole process simple.

The fixing of plasterboard relies mainly on glue not screws or nails. See the manufacturers websites. Only the edges of the boards are permanently screwed.

Plasterboard (available from Boral, CSR and Pioneer(La Farge)) is made in a number of thicknesses for different purposes. The garden variety is made as either 13mm or 10mm thick sheets in either 1200mm or 1350mm widths in various lengths. For ceilings, all the manufacturers have a 10mm board designed for 600mm centres. It is called Uni-span or Span 600 etc. Otherwise you can use 13mm without a problem.

Forget the battens unless you have had extremely bad carpenters at your place.

If you have any doubt go up into your existing roof of your house or 10 of your mate's houses and see if they have battens.

Further, installing battens won't solve your uneven ceiling scenario, because you then have to pack each batten at the point it cross the ceiling joists. As this would vary from truss to truss, it would take forever to do. That's why the suspended ceiling system is used when covering concrete slabs and other products such as "ultrafloor".

As far as the cambering of the trusses are concerned, there is no way on earth you will pick it up without a long straight edge. Mind you if you are going to do that I can assure you that if you go around your house and stick the straight edge on the walls, they will not be perfect either. Built into every Australian Standard that deals with building there is a certain degree of tolerance.

I have been involved with many court cases dealing with building matters (that is primarily what I do) and I can assure you that the perfect house is a myth.

So - what happens if your trusses don't allow you to fit your ceiling sheets? Case in point - I have a house that is 20 metres long and 8 metres wide - a rectangle. I put a steel framed extension of 4.2 metres width along the entire length of the house with my roof trusses giving me a skillion roof that cut up into my existing gable roof. Now - the trusses run out from the existing building to the soffits, which means that the undersides of the trusses run across the room/s for a distance of 4.2 metres to the external wall with another 900mm of eaves. I needed to put up 4200 x 1200 Gyproc sheets for the ceiling which obviously had to run in the same direction as the trussess. Try to tell me that I didn't need battens! You're right about steel being the way to go. Light, square and as straight as a die. I found when screwing the flooring, walls and ceiling sheets that a "Tek Gun" was the way to go. It's an electric drill with a shroud over the chuck that allows you to pre-set the depth to which you sink your screws (WingTeks) to avoid pulling through too far and damaging your exposed surfaces. And that prompts me to mention - from another thread somewhere - that I used paper jointing tape when plastering. And for what it's worth I did the whole project myself - from the plans (I'm trained as a draftsman), and the pier pads all the way to the roof. I even wired the place myself under the guidance of a brother who is an electrical engineer. All checked, double checked and certified. Why, the place even passed Council's inspections all the way.

Spear - You wrote "I needed to put up 4200 x 1200 Gyproc sheets for the ceiling which obviously had to run in the same direction as the trussess."

Assuming your trusses are spaced at 600mm centres or less, the reason I assume you used battens was because you want to avoid butt joins which would be needed if you were going to place sheets over 6m in length. Here I assume the length was either 8 or 20 metres. But where you dont mind butt joints (and yes they are common and accepted practice) or the length of sheet required is less than 6m then you simply fix the sheets horizontally. 3 full sheets of 1200 and one cut to 600mm would have covered the area you describe (4200). The number of joints should not be much different.

I'm not saying that you never use battens, but it is rare and not necessary purely because you are fixing to the bottom chords of trusses.

As for the balance of what you say, paper tape, and tek screwdriver, spot on.

I have a hip roof on the extension so I have trusses running in both directions in each of the rooms. I thought that to get a better finish it would be better to use battens. Some how I can picture the ceiling going up easier if I use battens
this may or may not be the case

When I started with this extension I didnt have a clue how to anything to do with building work, but I did make a foot stool about 25years ago in a woodworking class at school, so I thought I`d build on my knowledge from there ;-).

Lucky I stumbled across these forums in my search for information on building and after many days of hard work I would now say I know a very limited bit about a lot of things and it would of been a hell of a lot harder without the help of everyone that provides advice here so thank you all.

Back to the ceiling I think I may use battens because when I was putting up the trusses and roof didnt give much thought to the bottom chord and how level they should be so I think I will get a bit better finish if I use battens

Attached a couple of pics of the ceiling or where its going to go )

John, you're battens will still have to be placed in the opposite direction to the chords, so that side of things will remain the same unless you put noggins betweent the chords. You simply turn the gyprock sheets at this point.

The level of the bottom chords should have been determined the level of the top plates of the external stud walls.

As I said previously, there are tolerances in the industry. I would not be concerned with level of the ceiling so much (within reason) as I would with sudden variances in levels where the bottom chords. If the ceiling is not level say 10mm over the length of the room, this you will not notice, nor will it cause you any problems in finishing the job well. That said a 10mm variance over 600mm would definitely be noticeable. Then you would get the wave effect if its in the middle of the ceiling. But the same wave would be present at the top plate.

The same can be said for sudden changes where the bottom chords meet.

I hope I dont come across as a uneducated know it all, I'm just trying to give you the benefit of my experience to save you some time.

Before you go ahead with the battens, nail 2 nails 10mm below the level of the bottom chords and run string line across the room. If the distance (10mm) is reasonably well maintained then you should be right to sheet up.

If not then simply screwing the battens to the bottom chords will not solve the problem. As I said previously, you need to be able to adjust the levels at different points. After all, this is the reason your'e thinking about doing it in the first place. To do otherwise would just simply transfer the same levels down by the thickness of the batten.

I hope I have expressed myself well enough.

I did originally order the gyprock sheets so they would go the length of the rooms with no butt joins at the end of the sheets, but in what your saying would I run the sheets across the trusses in one direction and across the hip trusses the other way and would I join the sheets along the hip truss that goes out to the corner of the room at a 45 degree angle? is this what you mean?

I'm not sure if I would have enough gyprock to have to cut the sheets at a 45 degree angle? if this is what you mean?

Originally Posted by John99

I did originally order the gyprock sheets so they would go the length of the rooms with no butt joins at the end of the sheets, but in what your saying would I run the sheets across the trusses in one direction and across the hip trusses the other way and would I join the sheets along the hip truss that goes out to the corner of the room at a 45 degree angle? is this what you mean?

I'm not sure if I would have enough gyprock to have to cut the sheets at a 45 degree angle? if this is what you mean?

No, not quite, the gyprock is laid across the chords at 90 degrees. Where the chords change direction, so does the gyprock. This is where you would have the butt joins. If you need me to I will draw what I am trying to say.

I just had a closer look at your photos.

What your best off doing is placing noggins at 600 cc where the chords change direction.

By the way I am assuming you are using 10mm span 600 type plasterboard. If you are using 13mm you dont need to worry about the noggins as plasterboard can be laid both along the chord (as they do in commercial fitouts) or as is usually done at 90 degrees to the chord. You just need to be using the right board for the spans involved. Thats the limitation you have with span 600. It cannot be laid with the chord as it was engineered to be laid @ 90 degrees to the chords.

If the centres were 450 you could lay with the chord as long as you backblock the joins.

Any way from what I see in the photos you only have a little section where it goes in a different direction. All you need to do is put in noggins.

I hope I haven't confused you too much, sometimes I do get carried away with detail and not focus on the problem at hand

Did go and have a good look at what I was going to do this arvo only need to put a few ceiling trimmers / nogging in and should work out ok, yes did have 10mm gyprock supa ceiling and it does say it will span 600mm so probably will check level of trusses tomorrow and make a start soon.