Stockport Suspended Ceilings

Stockport Suspended Ceilings Suspended ceiling specialists. 19 years on major retail projects — Selfridges, Debenhams, Tesco, Waitrose, and Currys. Across the UK. Est. 2006.

Every installation includes a 5-year installation guarantee and a yearly maintenance inspection.

Does a school ceiling need a fire rating?Some of it will, and it depends where in the building you are standing.Corridor...
07/09/2026

Does a school ceiling need a fire rating?

Some of it will, and it depends where in the building you are standing.

Corridors, stairwells and anything forming a protected escape route usually carry a requirement. A classroom often does not. The line is not about the room, it is about what the construction is protecting and how long people need to get out.

Schools also carry a second requirement most people forget: acoustics. A ceiling in a teaching space is usually specified for sound as well as fire, and the tile that satisfies one does not automatically satisfy the other.

If you are refurbishing over the summer, the thing to resolve first is the fire strategy for the building, not the tile. Everything else follows from it, and it is far cheaper to know in June than in August.

Send us the spec. 0161 524 9076.

Do you ever need a fire rated ceiling in a house?More often than people expect, and it is rarely because anyone asked fo...
02/09/2026

Do you ever need a fire rated ceiling in a house?

More often than people expect, and it is rarely because anyone asked for it.

It comes from building regulations rather than choice. Flats and converted buildings need fire separation between dwellings. Loft conversions need protection to the escape route. Anything above a garage, and a lot of change of use work, carries a requirement.

We have just finished a job in Hazel Grove that shows how it works. MF ceilings to the kitchen, the bathroom and two bedrooms. MF means a concealed metal frame with boarding over it, so once it is skimmed you get a flat seamless ceiling with no grid and no joints.

The kitchen took 15mm Fireline board. The bathroom and bedrooms took 12.5mm.

That is not an accident. The kitchen is where a domestic fire is most likely to start, so it is the room that most often gets the upgraded board even when the rest of the house does not need it. Same ceiling to look at, different board above the skim.

Worth saying plainly, because it catches people out: the board on its own is not a fire rating. A rating belongs to the whole build up, the frame, the board, the fixings and the detailing at the edges, tested together. Anyone selling you a rating on the strength of a board name is not telling you the whole story.

The whole job took a day and a half.

The point worth taking from it: a fire rated ceiling in a house does not have to look like a commercial one. Done properly you cannot tell, and that is rather the idea.

Not sure what your building needs? Ask us. 0161 524 9076.

Is that price just labour, or supply and fit?Always ask, because two quotes that look miles apart are often quotingdiffe...
30/08/2026

Is that price just labour, or supply and fit?

Always ask, because two quotes that look miles apart are often quoting
different things.

A labour only rate is the fixing. You supply the grid, the tiles and the
fixings, you deal with the delivery, the storage and whatever gets damaged
before it goes up, and you carry the waste.

Supply and fit is one number for the lot. Material, labour, waste, and the
risk that the material price moved between quoting and starting.

Neither is wrong. Labour only can work if you are a contractor who buys
better than we do and already has the material on site. For most people
supply and fit is cheaper by the time you have counted the trips, the
storage and the breakages.

What is not fine is comparing one against the other and thinking one firm is
expensive. Get both quotes on the same basis before you decide anything.

What is the difference between a suspended, drop and false ceiling?Mostly nothing. They are three names for the same thi...
30/08/2026

What is the difference between a suspended, drop and false ceiling?

Mostly nothing. They are three names for the same thing, and which one you
hear depends on who you are talking to.

Suspended ceiling is the trade term and what you will see on a specification.

Drop ceiling is more common in America and turns up in a lot of product
listings, so people searching for prices often end up using it.

False ceiling is used widely in the UK domestically and is also the common
term across a lot of the world.

All three describe a ceiling hung below the structural one, with a void above
it for services. The genuinely useful distinction is not the name, it is the
build. Grid and tile, where you can lift a tile and get at what is above it.
Or MF, a concealed frame with plasterboard over it, skimmed flat with no grid
and no access.

That choice, access or seamless finish, is the one that actually matters.

Can you put a fire rated ceiling into an existing building?Usually yes, and the work is mostly above the ceiling, not be...
30/08/2026

Can you put a fire rated ceiling into an existing building?

Usually yes, and the work is mostly above the ceiling, not below it.

Old buildings rarely give you a clean soffit to fix to. Steel, timber,
concrete, services already in the way, and often a previous ceiling that was
put in before anybody was thinking about fire compartments. So the survey
matters more than the spec sheet.

What we are looking for is what we can actually fix to, whether the
compartment line above is intact, and how the perimeter meets the walls.
Fire and smoke go through gaps, so an immaculate ceiling with an unsealed
edge or an unsealed service pe*******on has not done the job.

Refurbishment is also where you find the ceiling and the partitions were done
by different trades at different times and never quite met. That join is
worth checking before anything is priced.

Do I need a 30 minute or a 60 minute fire rated ceiling?It depends on what the ceiling is protecting, not on the room it...
30/08/2026

Do I need a 30 minute or a 60 minute fire rated ceiling?

It depends on what the ceiling is protecting, not on the room it is in.

A fire rating is about how long the construction holds back fire and smoke so
people can get out and the fire service can get in. Escape routes, corridors
and stairwells usually carry a higher requirement than the open office they
lead off, which surprises people.

Thirty minutes and sixty minutes are the two you meet most often in
commercial work. Two hour and four hour ratings exist and turn up in specific
compartmentation and plant situations.

The rating is not something to guess at or copy from the last job. It comes
off the fire strategy or the building control requirement for that building.
If nobody can tell you which it is, that is the thing to resolve before
anybody prices a ceiling, because it changes the build and the cost.

What paperwork do we get?Whatever the job needs, and it is worth asking before you appoint anybody.On a commercial job t...
30/08/2026

What paperwork do we get?

Whatever the job needs, and it is worth asking before you appoint anybody.

On a commercial job that normally means public liability cover, RAMS for the
work, product data sheets for the system installed, and where there is a fire
rating, the certification for that specific build-up rather than a general
claim that it is fire rated.

That last one catches people out. A tile can be fire rated and the ceiling
still not achieve the rating, because the rating belongs to the whole system,
the grid, the tile, the hangers and the fixings tested together. If a
building control officer asks, a tile spec sheet on its own is not the
answer.

Ask us for it up front and it turns up with the quote, not chased afterwards.

Ask us what documentation your job needs, through our website.

What is the biggest ceiling you have done?Around 2,000m2 of grid ceiling in a science laboratory in Northampton.Big jobs...
30/08/2026

What is the biggest ceiling you have done?

Around 2,000m2 of grid ceiling in a science laboratory in Northampton.

Big jobs are not small jobs repeated. At that size the work is setting out and
sequencing. Getting the grid line true at one end so it is still true right
across the building, holding the level over that distance, and keeping ahead
of the trades following you without boxing any of them in.

A laboratory adds its own requirements on top. There is far more going through
a lab ceiling than an office one, extract, services and controlled
environments, so the coordination has to be right before a single hanger goes
in. And the tile specification is doing a job, not just covering a void.

Material handling matters at that scale too. Two thousand square metres of
grid and tile has to arrive when there is somewhere to put it, and move
through a building other people are also working in.

That is the difference between a contractor who can do a big room and one who
can run a big programme.

Tell us about your programme through our website.

Can you fit a ceiling under a sloped or vaulted roof?Yes, and it is a different job to a flat one, so price it as one.A ...
30/08/2026

Can you fit a ceiling under a sloped or vaulted roof?

Yes, and it is a different job to a flat one, so price it as one.

A vaulted or raked ceiling is built with MF metalwork following the pitch.
There is no grid, every cut is an angle, and the setting out has to be right
at both ends or the slope reads as crooked from across the room. It is slow
work and anyone quoting it at flat ceiling rates has not looked properly.

The upside is the finish. A vaulted MF ceiling gives you the height and the
shape of the roof with a clean plastered surface, and you can still run
insulation, fire protection and services inside the void.

If it is a barn conversion, a loft, a church hall or a high spec extension,
send us the sections and we will price it properly rather than guess.

Send us your drawings through our website.

Do you take the old ceiling away?Yes. Strip out, load out and dispose, and it is in the price rather than asurprise at t...
30/08/2026

Do you take the old ceiling away?

Yes. Strip out, load out and dispose, and it is in the price rather than a
surprise at the end.

A ceiling strip out makes more waste than people expect. Old mineral tiles,
grid, hangers and whatever has been dumped in the void over the years, and
mineral tile is bulky and light so it fills a skip fast.

Two things worth flagging before we start. If the building is pre 2000 there
may be asbestos in or above the ceiling, and that is a survey job, not
something anybody should be pulling down to have a look at.

We are asbestos awareness trained, which does not mean we remove it. It means
we know what it can look like and what to do about it. If we open a ceiling
and something looks wrong, we stop, and it gets tested before anybody goes
any further. That is the whole point of the training, and it is a lot cheaper
than finding out afterwards.

And if you are trading through it, the strip out is the dusty part, so that
is normally the bit we do out of hours.

Tell us what is up there and we will tell you what is involved.

Tell us about the existing ceiling through our website.

Address

Kennet Drive
Stockport
SK62GA

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Monday 8am - 8pm
Tuesday 8am - 8pm
Wednesday 8am - 8pm
Thursday 8am - 8pm
Friday 8am - 8pm
Saturday 8am - 8pm
Sunday 8am - 8pm

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