When choosing a stretch ceiling as a finishing material, apartment owners traditionally ask themselves the question: how much does the stretch ceiling fall from the floor slab, changing the usual perception of dimensions? It is especially important to find out this nuance with a small height of the ceilings in the apartment, since every centimeter of space in such a room is important and a lowered canvas will completely erase the impression of a new repair.
Few craftsmen honestly inform customers about the real value of the height that stretch ceilings take. In fact, how many centimeters from the ceiling do structures designed to hold the canvas stretched take in reality? According to the assurances of unscrupulous companies, the distance from the floor slab to the canvas corresponds to the height of the baguette or mounting profile. The height of such a profile depends on the tension system and can range from 10 mm for ceiling suspension and up to 40 mm for wall suspension.
Wall baguettes come in plastic (25 - 29 mm high) and metal (35-40 mm high) designs. The latter, of course, are more expensive, but in terms of durability and quality they are noticeably ahead of plastic analogues, therefore it is recommended to choose metal profiles for the equipment of tension systems. In turn, metal profiles are divided according to the pattern of holding the blade in grooves into harpoon and clip types.
Clip baguettes (35 mm) have a minimum height, but due to the complexity of installation, they are rarely used. As a result, the customer most often has to deal with the proposal to install a harpoon web fastening system with a profile height of about 40 mm.
The ceiling mounting mounting profiles have a height of 10 to 20 mm, but for the installation of stretch linens for these baguettes, special preparation of the base will be necessary, which will have to be leveled in an ideal plane, otherwise, under a certain angle of illumination under the material, surface imperfections will be visible.
Theoretically, when using the most popular wall mounts, the height of the inter-ceiling space should be from 35 to 40 mm, but in reality everything happens a little differently.
If the wall baguette is placed close to the floor slab, the attachment points of the profile to the wall will be 20 mm from the ceiling, which means that it will be necessary to drill the wall at this distance.
There is a reason why drilling at such a distance is impossible: between the center of the drill and the extreme point of the punch, facing the slab, at least 40 mm.
In addition, at a distance of 20 mm from the top of the wall, there is a joint seam of the floor slab and wall plate, which is most often filled with plaster mortar, which means that this base does not have sufficient strength to hold the rather heavy construction of the stretch ceiling.
In some cases, the craftsmen try to make a hole at an angle, but such an arrangement of the dowel will also not guarantee sufficient reliability of the fastening, since the fasteners are not working in bending moment.
As a result, it turns out that to ensure reliable fastening of the ceiling tension system, it is necessary to deviate from the upper point of the wall at least 40 mm, which gives the end point of the canvas at a distance from the floor slab from 50 to 60 mm. It is at these minimum values, excluding the installation of lighting fixtures, that customers who want to equip suspended ceilings in their apartment should be guided.
Opportunities for reducing the height taken away
Having learned how much the stretch ceiling height in the room eats, many owners begin to look for ways to reduce this figure. There are several options for reducing the indent from the ceiling plate to the surface of a fabric or film stretch fabric:
- If you abandon the classic lighting fixtures and chandeliers in favor of the LED lighting strip, you can significantly reduce the ceiling space. For the installation of such lighting does not require much space, but to ensure bright light will have to use the maximum number of tapes.
- The use of a wedge system of fastening the canvas in baguettes allows you to save up to 20 mm of inter-ceiling space.
- Another option for saving height is the use of wall and floor lighting sources. If you install a sufficient number of sconces and other lamps around the room’s perimeter, you can avoid placing ceiling chandeliers, which means you don’t have to prepare additional space for them, which saves up to 35 mm.
- If the ceiling plate has a perfectly flat surface, it is recommended to use profiles that are equipped with a ceiling mount. This method makes it possible to reduce the inter-ceiling space to 20 - 25 mm.
- Spotlights require a small space for installation, so the use of such lighting will save a height, compared with standard ceiling lighting fixtures, by 20-30 mm.
At what ceiling height is it recommended to install a tension web
Having dealt with the question of how much the stretch ceiling falls during installation, you can determine the minimum ceiling height in the room at which the installation of tension systems is possible.
The placement of tension systems is recommended in apartments with a ceiling height of at least 2.5 m. In lower rooms it is better to use traditional painting or whitewashing, but not a stretch ceiling.
How many cm from the ceiling deviate in one case or another:
- When using a large wall profile, you will have to leave at least 200 mm from the floor slab to the surface of the mounted canvas;
- Any communications that are planned to be carried out in the inter-ceiling space affect the distance from the floor slab to the surface of the canvas, and for their placement you will have to allocate a place with a size of at least 150 mm;
- How much height does the stretch ceiling take with the overall lighting fixtures? The minimum distance that a simple lamp will occupy is 150 mm, while installing large chandeliers with a ceiling height of less than 2700 mm is not recommended;
- Plastic cornices for suspended ceilings have significant dimensions, so they are best used in rooms with a height of at least 300 mm.
For soaring ceilings, the height of which starts from 3 m, any type of device for suspended systems, including two-level ones, is suitable. In this case, the distance from the ceiling plate to the canvas can be 300, 400 and 500 mm, which visually does not violate the holistic perception of the space of the room.
How low is the ceiling in the case of other ceiling structures
- Mounted the ceiling eats up at least 10 cm of ceiling space. When installing suspension systems, a metal profile is used, which is attached to the walls and ceiling on special suspensions. When using fixtures, this parameter can increase to 15 cm or more;
- Rack and pinion systems can reduce the useful height in the room by 35-40 cm;
- When pasting the ceiling polystyrene plates height reduction occurs by a maximum of 1 cm;
- Minimum lowering of the ceiling surface at file technology is 400 mm.