Installing bathroom fitting with no joist to fix to

[GMjohn]

Hi,

I've not been working much during the past 8 months, but have been asked to do a job for my parents.

I'm changing out 6 downlights in the bathroom as they don't work very well and was going to change it for one ip44 rated bathroom light fitting which takes 1 es bulb. The fitting has a 32cm diameter approx, with a glass cover. However, when I took the downlights out, I noticed it was a false ceiling with plasterboard attached to wooden supports, and there was no wooden support near where I was going to put the new fitting. I cannot get access from above to fit another wooden support for the light to fix into, so was wondering what my options are.

On the spot, I could think of two possibilities, but don't have the experience to know if they'd be safe ones. The obvious would be to use plasterboard fixings like spring toggles, but I have no idea whether that would be suitable for holding the weight or whether the plasterboard is at risk of being pulled down at some future point. I have also considered whether I could shove a length of wood up through one of the existing downlight holes, screw through the plasterboard to hold it in position, and fix the fitting into this. I guess this would give something to screw into and spread the weight a little, but would it serve the purpose and be safe?

Is there a way to fix this fitting to the ceiling safely without putting a noggin up there to screw to? Or is my only real option to refit downlights?

 

[Guest77]

Dejavu??

 

[Simonslimline]

How heavy is the light fitting? check the link out below

Grip It Heavy Duty Plasterboard Fixings |

 

[Baker1988]

Me personally mate I would use either a spring toggle or a corkscrew plasterboard plug and fix it that way mate im pretty sire the light is not that heavy so just use one of the options I mentioned.

 

[Baker1988]

How heavy is the light fitting? check the link out below

Grip It Heavy Duty Plasterboard Fixings |

So with them fixings you can put something up that weights 180kg? Really!!! That seems a bit much to put onto plasterboard

 

[pennychew]

So with them fixings you can put something up that weights 180kg? Really!!! That seems a bit much to put onto plasterboard

Sounds like ******** to me like! it says in brackets safe working load of 90kg but even then it must a shearing type force they mean. I wouldnt be standing under a 90kg weight hung from a ceiling by one!

 

[Guest77]

You couldn't pay me to have one of those lights in my bathroom, absolute trash.

 

[GMjohn]

Hi,

thanks to to everyone for your responses. Sorry I've taken so long to get back to this. I got sidetracked, but the time has arrived to get down to this job.

How heavy is the light fitting? check the link out below

Grip It Heavy Duty Plasterboard Fixings |

Heavier than I expected it to be, but not that heavy. Just put it onto some bathroom scales and it was around 1.2kg.

Are these better than spring toggles in a ceiling then? If so, what advantage do they have, and which ones would I buy for such a weight from a ceiling as all the examples seem to be for wall hanging?

The larger sizes seem to need quite a big hole. The light fitting I've bought is to be screwed in 3 places, and the cable hole is very close to one of them.

You couldn't pay me to have one of those lights in my bathroom, absolute trash.

From reading the other thread, I decided against it and went for an led fitting instead. No idea if the one I've bought is any good though.

I bought this led fitting last week - Welcome to Eterna Lighting

It's a polycarbonate ip65 led fitting. Around 330x120mm.

It's heavier than I thought it would be, which is really my only concern about this job. I was going to fix it to the ceiling using three m3 spring toggles, (the fixings mentioned above become an alternative consideration), and am a little concerned about what weight of fitting a plasterboard ceiling can support. Am I worrying about nothing here? The plasterboard isn't fixed directly to the joists, so I'm not sure exactly how it's fixed and supported as I can't get a good look.

The reason I'm thinking of using m3 toggles instead of m5 is that the hole/grommet for the cable is very close to one of the holes for the spring toggle, so want to drill as small a hole as possible in the plasterboard to keep as much distance between the two holes as possible. I suppose I could use 2 m5 toggles and 1 m3 if the size of the m3 could be an issue supporting the fitting, but I doubt it. Or I could use the fixings mentioned by Simonslimline if they are better.

With regards the regs, I have a couple of questions that's occurred to me -

Looking in the onsite guide, I notice table 8.1 in locations containing a bathroom or shower, says zone 2 is ip44 unless there's water jets, in which case it's ip65. I think water jets refers to those used for cleaning purposes, say in communal showers, but think i should ask just to make sure it's not referring to a shower itself, even one without a fixed head. A shower with a removable head doesn't seem that far from a light fitting in zone two, so is ip44 still ok in those cases?

Also, with regards the zones extending 2.25m in height, I can maybe understand above this being outside the zones if there is no shower or a shower with fixed head, but wouldn't a normal ip20 fitting above this height over zone 1 or 2 still suffer the effects of moisture, steam and condensation, or doesn't that matter?

It also seems a little low if the shower head is removable, as spray could easily reach past that height if someone is waving the shower head about. It isn't that far above someone's head once they're stood on a basin or stood in a bath. So unless it's a significantly high ceiling, I tend to ignore this height and would include, say, 2.4m as still in a zone.

I'm assuming the regs on height are there for a good reason though, and wonder if I'm being overly cautious or missing something in my understanding about why this height is outside the zones when it doesn't seem that high.

 

[telectrix]

use the spring toggles. if you can, drill a new hole for the cable entry away from the fixings.

 

[Guest77]

That LED fitting looks a good choice, well done.

 

[Richard Burns]

A spring toggle should support about up to 20kg (though the plasterboard may break first) and you have a three screws on a 1.2 kg fitting so each screw is supporting approx 0.4kg, I would not expect a problem.

IP44 is OK with a shower, as you say the water jets described are more jet washes and so forth.
A normal pendant would not be suitable above the zones because it is not suitable for the environment, this is a general requirement for all installations, whether in the bathroom or not.
You can apply your own definitions so long as they are safer than BS7671 requirements, but the limiting factor is the BS7671 requirements.

The idea is that people should act normally and spraying the shower on the ceiling is not normal, if a 6 foot person were holding a shower spray above their head in the bath they would likely be below 2.25 metres, it also means that in general with standard (ish) 2.4m ceilings a flush mounted light can be fixed in place without having to specify an IP rating.

 

[pennychew]

You couldn't pay me to have one of those lights in my bathroom, absolute trash.

You need to start saying what you think mate, get off that fence!

 

[Guest77]

You need to start saying what you think mate, get off that fence!

I am here to help fella, the light concerned was total trash, A new LED is now going in, much better and I will be thanked for it in the end, Experience :smilewinkgrin:

 

[pennychew]

I am here to help fella, the light concerned was total trash, A new LED is now going in, much better and I will be thanked for it in the end, Experience :smilewinkgrin:

I'm not knocking it, i like people who tell it like it is!

 

[Jamie]

I always use the toggle bolts with this, the toggle gun is such a useful tool when it comes to storage heaters/bulky lights/ and even sometimes consumer units. Use two of these on one side of the storage heater and catch a joist on the other side, that heater aint' coming off! I would say two of the toggle bolts would hold one of them "council spec" bathroom lights up no problem
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