Battening Plasterboard

[cwhaley]

I'll be plaster boarding my new extension next month. In another thread I posted on here, it seemed the general consensus was to batten rather than D&D. The walls are all flat and plumb and it does make it easier running conduit and pipework behind. I have since been very lucky to secure about 150m of free tile laths (about 19mm x 38mm), taken from somebody local's roof replacement. This is what I'll be using on the internal blockwork to fix the plasterboard to. I've calculated I'll need about 80 metres (at 400mm spacing) and 25 boards.

Some have told me to use regular brown plugs and 100mm screws, others have said concrete screws (which I have lots of) so between the two I'm unsure which to use. If I got the other half pre-drilling the laths on the pillar drill, it'd be quicker to go straight into the blocks using the concrete screws, however I've not fixed into blockwork before - are these appropriate and are they easy to work with?

 

[Deleted member 292770]

easy if you use the right size drill and a good impact driver.
70 or 80mm will be long enough.

 

[Mr Chibs]

I drilled my battens as I put them up, as I always seem to hit a mortar line (lime) when pre drilling the batten.

I used 70mm concrete screws, if the occasional one didn’t grip well, i lobbed in a bamboo skewer, sorted.

 

[cwhaley]

I don't have an impact driver unfortunately -- it broke trying to free wheels from a very old car!

I think I'll use plugs and screws and do as @Mr Chibs says by offering the timber up to the wall once cut, and drilling the pilot holes in situ. At least then there will be a small mark on the block for where I need to drill the hole for the plug.