montybaber

pmsl :d:d

wattsup

>>thats ace does it see through clothes? <<
I hope not, my vault stick ain't what it once was, well and truley battered, needs attention.. Any apprentice females out there know how to repair it? In fact it ought to be an exam question -

greekislandlover

Sorry if I'm missing something here, but after you have found the joists, how are you going to get a cable through them if the punter doesn't want you to lift the laminate, and doesn't want the ceiling peppered with holes? Are you planning to put all the downlighters within the same joist and point them in random directions, or is the ceiling suspended with some space above the joists to run cables?

My tip for looking in tight spaces is a bit of broken mirror tile and a head torch. If you shine the torch on the mirror and angle just right you can see what you need to. Not sure the "Elf N Safety" nazi's would necessarily approve of carrying broken mirrors in the toolbox though. I like the thermal imaging camera and endoscope ideas though

mdshunk

I guess you can drill holes in the UK, same as we can in the US?

I use these long, flexi bits if I need to drill through several joists, from one down lighter location to another. They're between 3 and 6 feet long, and they bend a bit so that you can get them in the ceiling cavity. Maybe you all have those available to you already?

montybaber

you lot have got everything over there

mdshunk

Hey, brother, eBay is everywhere. My wall chaser was shipped from the UK. Didn't cost much at all for shipping. Maybe you have to pay an import duty for stuff from the US?

sparkyork

with reference to that looooong drill bit! im not sure that would work over here, for one i dont know if you could get that through a 65mm downlight hole without destroying the cieling around the hole, 2ndly, dont know what the regs are like over there but we've gotta drill a certain depth in the actual joist, must be a bit of guess work involved in using one of these and also not knowing what your about to drill through!! (pipes, soil pipes, cables) it'd be one of them hope theres nothing there moments where you close your eyes and pray!

mdshunk

Probably not. My typical recessed lighting cans take either a 4-3/8" (110mm) hole or a 6-5/8" (168mm) hole. They work well for that. There is a placement tool that holds the bit "bent" so that you can effectively drill "dead centered" in the timber if you're skilled. No way to prove it to an inspector, obviously. Here's another nifty gadget you might like, along the lines of the broken mirror and head torch. It's called a "wall eye periscope". Works good in ceilings too. It's basically just a mirror with a little LED lamp built in.

tony.towa

They say the simplest ideas are the best.

That wall eye periscope is a superb idea, the number of times I've tried to make my neck double jointed to try and see if there is a way round a hidden noggin. Ebay here I come.

Carter

Whenever I get conned into a domestic job and need to find the ceiling joists my first option is to get up close and look for any rippling that coincides with the 16 inch spacing.
If that doesnt reveal anything, next port of call is to drop the pendant and locate the joist it's usually fixed to. Then apply 16 in centres.

Loving the mobile phone camera wheeze though, kudos for that one. And that little periscope doodad is just an excellent bit of bling for the toolbox!