Ceiling boards in offices and shops

Office and shop ceilings in Singapore are usually one of four things. Plasterboard or gypsum board on a light-steel frame. Mineral-fibre tiles in a T-bar grid. A cement or calcium-silicate board in a wet room. Or the concrete soffit, painted, with no lining at all. The repair follows the board. A price for “the ceiling” without that name is how a tile job gets billed as a plasterboard section.

The ceiling repair page already prices a home: a small hole S$150 to S$280, a hairline or a water stain after the leak is fixed S$150 to S$400, a hinged heater hatch S$180 to S$350, a sagging L-box re-anchored S$220 to S$450, a false-ceiling board section S$250 to S$650, and a small spalling patch S$150 to S$300. An MCST clubhouse or gym hatch is S$220 to S$550. Those sentences still apply when the room is an office or a shop and the photo matches them. What this page adds is how to tell the boards apart and when the sentence does not match.

People ask how to repair a broken ceiling board, what a plaster ceiling costs, and how to know a crack is serious. The method is below. A square-metre plaster rate for a whole soffit is not in the catalogue.

Curtains, blinds and roller shades are not part of this booking.

Water is identified before the board is closed. A brown ring that is still damp, a drip into a bucket, or a stain that grew after the last rain means the source is still open. The source may be the unit above, a roof, a condensate tray, or a pipe in the void. Painting that ring is the visit that fails. Supply-pipe work, when the pipe itself must be moved or renewed, is a PUB licensed plumber. Reconnecting what is already there can be maintenance. We say which one it is from the photo of the pipe, not from the colour of the stain.

A gypsum board is cut back to sound sheet and the new piece is screwed into the metal channel or timber, not into the ragged edge of the old board. Joints are taped. Screw heads are set just below the face, not driven through the paper. A patch that relies on the broken edge sags. The published board section is S$250 to S$650 for that kind of replacement. A small hole that does not need a new sheet is S$150 to S$280. An L-box that has dropped off its hangers is re-anchored at S$220 to S$450. Hangers that are only tied to another ceiling tile are the sloppy version.

A mineral-fibre tile in a grid lifts out. If the tile is stained and the grid is straight, the honest line is often a replacement tile. No per-tile price is printed, so that line is quote on inspection. Do not force the S$250 to S$650 board sentence onto a 600 mm tile. If the grid itself has opened, or the hanger wire has slipped, say so. A tile screwed to the T-bar to stop it rattling is a mark of a short visit. The tile has to sit in the grid so the next person can lift it.

A crack in a concrete soffit is a different object from a crack in a board. Spalling with exposed, rusty steel is the small spalling row only when it matches that sentence, S$150 to S$300. A crack that runs out of a beam, a soffit that has deflected, or rust that is more than a small patch is not filled and forgotten. We are not the structural engineer. The visit stops. A hairline in paint, after the leak has actually stopped, is S$150 to S$400.

Photograph the ceiling from below and, if a tile lifts safely from the floor without a ladder over a stair, one photo of the void. Do not climb. Say office, shop, food shop, or condo unit. A food shop’s ceiling still has to stay cleanable. We will not leave open insulation over a preparation table. A mall unit may only allow the work at night. That night is the mall row, S$380 to S$650, plus the board row. It is not included inside S$250.

Count the sheets or the tiles. “The whole ceiling looks old” is not the board-section sentence. One section is S$250 to S$650. A room of tiles with no per-tile row is quote on inspection. A heater above a bathroom ceiling that has no hatch is the hatch sentence, S$180 to S$350, which is a home and condo detail that also appears in offices with a pantry tank.

Name the board. The price is the board’s sentence.

Questions a business should ask

Ask anyone pricing a ceiling these questions.

1. Is the lining plasterboard, a mineral tile, or concrete?
2. Has the leak stopped, and who is repairing the source?
3. Which printed sentence is the quote, and how many sheets or tiles does it cover?
4. Will the fixings reach the frame or the slab?
5. Will a grid tile still lift out afterwards?
6. Is a hatch required for a valve or a heater, and is that a separate row?
7. If this is a mall, is the night row written separately?
8. Are you claiming the crack is structural? If yes, who is the engineer? We are not.

The board price is the same. The person who owns the water changes.

A leak from above is explained on the ceiling-leak guide. In an HDB block the upper flat, the town council and the owner of the ceiling finish are not the same person. In a condo the slab may be common property. We make good the board we are instructed to make good. We do not decide the neighbour’s liability.

BCA’s insignificant-works page is the right place to start if someone proposes to cut a new opening through structure for a ladder or a duct. A board patch is not that opening. The attic-ladder page already says a new structural hole is outside its install band. PUB licensed plumbers remain the trade for a new or relocated water pipe.

MOM’s pathway duty matters when a ladder stands in a shop aisle or an office corridor. The occupier provides a safe route. We do not leave a ladder in a fire exit. No response time is published.

Official pages

• BCA: building works that do not need plan approval
• MOM: WSH duties of employers, principals and occupiers

Homey Furnishing Pte. Ltd. (ACRA UEN 202018148K), 27 Mandai Estate, #06-10 Innovation Place, Singapore 729931, invoices the permit-exempt visit. V On Construction Pte. Ltd. (ACRA UEN 201611708H), on the HDB Directory of Renovation Contractors, invoices hacking, a new layout, and an HDB renovation permit. Homey Furnishing is not a property agency, not a CEA practice, and not a MOM-licensed employment agency.

How you're charged

A job that already has a sentence on HomeySG uses that sentence. The hour is not added on top of a band unless the written scope says so. There is no fuel surcharge and no published night premium except the mall overnight row.

The board section, the hole and the hatch are separate rows. A mineral tile does not inherit the plasterboard price, and the hour is not added on top of a matching row unless the scope says so.

Ways to keep the bill smaller

• Stop the leak before you book paint. Paint on a wet board is a second visit.
• Lift one tile and photograph the void if you can do it safely from the floor. The photo tells gypsum from fibre.
• Ask the upstairs unit or the MCST about the water before you pay for a ceiling that will stain again.
• Replace one section. A whole new ceiling is quote on inspection and is rarely the first spend.

WhatsApp the photos to +65 8561 0630.

Home and commercial rooms share these board sentences. The tile does not.

Anything not in that table is quote on inspection.

WhatsApp the photos to +65 8561 0630. The reply uses a band already printed on HomeySG, or it says quote on inspection.

• Ceiling repair bands
• Who pays for a ceiling leak
• Heater above a ceiling
• Mall night access
• Leaving the grid usable at lease end