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.

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.

Do you do houses, or only commercial?Both, and the residential work is usually MF rather than grid.Most people picture a...
30/08/2026

Do you do houses, or only commercial?

Both, and the residential work is usually MF rather than grid.

Most people picture a suspended ceiling as the office grid with the square
tiles. In a house it is almost always an MF ceiling instead. That is a
concealed metal frame with plasterboard over it, skimmed, so you get a flat
seamless finish with no grid line anywhere. It is used to level an old
uneven ceiling, to drop a ceiling for insulation or services, or to form
coffers and features.

We recently did 300m2 of MF with coffered detail in a period property in
Prestbury, finished to the client's deadline ready for skimming.

Same crew, same standard as the commercial work. The difference is only the
build-up.

See the Prestbury project on our website.

A pipe leaked and stained the tiles. What now?Fix the leak first, then deal with the ceiling. In that order, always.Repl...
30/08/2026

A pipe leaked and stained the tiles. What now?

Fix the leak first, then deal with the ceiling. In that order, always.

Replace stained tiles while water is still coming through and you will be
buying tiles twice. It sounds obvious and it is still the most common thing
we get called out to.

Once it is dry, a water stained mineral tile does not clean up. The stain is
in the tile, not on it, and painting it seals the surface and changes how it
performs. Replace the affected tiles.

Also worth checking while the tiles are out: whether the water has been
sitting on the grid. A soaked grid can corrode and a soaked tile gets heavy
and sags, so the damage is sometimes wider than the brown mark you can see.

Send us a photo through our website and we will tell you how

Address

Kennet Drive
Stockport
SK62GA

Opening Hours

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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