Hammer Time Taking Out A Mud Ceiling

Last week we experienced some large thunderstorms with the rain coming down near horizontal, that was when we noticed that we had some leaks as we had water in the back room, running down the walls. So me being me, I thought I would take a look. I soon realised that we had a chipboard ceiling, great I thought, should be easy to pull a bit down and take a peek.

WRONG!

Yes there was chipboard nailed up as a ceiling, but above that was wooden twigs about 2 inch in diameter, with a layer of mud about 5 inches deep above it. Bloody marvellous, here was me hoping for a simple quick peek, and now it has turned into a full on excavation, just so I can pop my head up there and have a look. I figured I would start with the area that showed the most moisture damage, using my logical thinking, I figured this area would be the easiest to remove and get my first glimpse.

Turns out I was wrong again, the water damage had meant that the mud above had over time seeped down through the wood and into the chipboard, meaning that instead of the ceiling coming down in nice easy pieces, it ended up coming down in one solid, sodding heavy bit! Not only was it in one piece and bloody heavy, but there was this immense shower of what can only be described as crap and dust, raining down on my head. After the initial dust cloud in the room had settled a bit and I could see again, I realised that one I had been very lucky as a loose tile from above had come down with the crud, and only just missed me, but secondly my wife ( @goodlifebulgaria ) was going to kill me! I had forgotten to move some of her furniture out of the room, and now they resembled big piles of dusty shit in the corner, oops ! So after a quick brush I figured “yeah that will do”, and that I had salvaged the furniture and she wouldn’t be mad with me.

I tried to peer through this new hole to see the roof, but me being a largish bloke, I couldn’t fit through the gap, so I thought, sod it, I’ll take a bit more down so I can get in there. So after a bit more banging of the hammer and crowbar, and a bit more yanking at everything above my head, I now had a hole big enough to fit my fat gut through. Now a word of caution here for anyone else that considers taking this on.

Not just above my head was chipboard, wooden branches and mud, but tiles ( lots of tiles ) random metal and wooden objects ( buggered if I know what some of them are ), loose bricks, scrap bits of sheet metal, and rat shit – lots and lots of rat shit, half eaten nuts and seeds and god knows what else ( the joys of an old house ). So if you don’t like dirt, then find someone else to do this for you.

So if your doing like me, your room will resemble something like the picture above, all in for a room that is about 4m x 4m I took over 45 wheelbarrow loads of crud out, which equated to about a ton to a ton and a half of shite! Kinda scary thinking that is above your head, and had I not taken it down and it had been left with a leaking roof, eventually all of that weight and rubbish would be on the floor anyway.

So now I’ve taken the entire ceiling down, removed all the rubbish, cleaned my wife’s furniture and cleaned all the beams, is time for my wife and sister in law to get all creative and figure out what they want to do with it.

Once I know I will make a new post letting you know what my next project is.