The Exterior Ceiling Over the Deck

If you want your house to look really good, it’s all about the finishes. So, we probably didn’t need to put an exterior ceiling up over the deck area, but it makes it all look so much smarter. Putting a ceiling up here also gave us the opportunity to board up all the supporting structure; exactly where we don’t want birds making nests. It also allowed us to board up the space between the arched roof and the top of the shipping container which is another place birds might like to nest.

A Small Debate

As always, we had a few family meetings as to how best to go about doing the work. We considered using standard ceiling boards (aka rhinoboard) as this would be the cheapest option. However, we were a little worried that we might have a particularly gusty Cape rainstorm where the wind blows the rain under the roof and then up in defiance of gravity (yes, it can happen). This might result in the boards getting wet. As rhinoboard is plaster compressed between sheets of paper, it would easily be damaged by water. Not a good prospect.

We therefore decided to save ourselves the trouble of possibly having to redo the work and rather went with fibre cement boards. It is the same type of board that we are using for the cladding, but we bought it in large flat sheets with no embossed texture. This time around we bought the Nutec brand as we found it for sale at a good price.

Attaching the Fibre Cement Boards

We needed to somehow attach the boards to the roof without damaging the roof arches. The structure that is in place to support the roof isn’t in the right place for the boards so we could not use that. It turns out that dry-wall studs were the perfect thing to use. We had a few lengths from a previous project and they have worked so well. They are nice and light-weight but also strong enough to hold up the boards. They spanned the width easily and they are resistant to rust.

These particular lengths were actually stored outside for over a year and I am amazed to report that they still look new. It is amazing how galvanizing can protect even such thin pieces of metal from the elements.

The combination of dry wall studs, foil insulation for extra protection, and then the fibre cement sheets have made an excellent ceiling above the deck area. We also used some of the fibre cement boards for fascias on the edge of the roof. A lick of plaint and voila; the exterior ceiling is looking great!