I was told by an ID that the beam in the ceiling that separates my dining and living room cannot be level up with false ceiling according to HDB guidelines. and the false ceiling height must be slightly shorter than the beam. how true is this?

i was planning to just do false ceiling for my living room and hoping the beam can "disappear" with the leveling.

min clear ht is 2.4 from flr to ceiling

i believe your beam is only 2.17 (around there) from the flr right?

There must be minimum clearance of 2.4m between your flooring and the false ceiling.

http://www.hdb.gov.sg/fi10/fi10297p.nsf/Im...+Guidelines.pdf

If you level the false ceiling with the beam, I suppose it cannot fulfill that requirement hence your ID says not allowed. Most of the time the beam is quite low...

i did not realise the beam height cld be an issue.. thanks for the replies! will need to go back and measure.

wonder how the others deal with the beam..cuz i seldom see a protuding beam on pictures of living room and dining room with false ceiling. hee..

Live with it.

i did not realise the beam height cld be an issue.. thanks for the replies! will need to go back and measure.

wonder how the others deal with the beam..cuz i seldom see a protuding beam on pictures of living room and dining room with false ceiling. hee..

there's a few reason why you don't see the beam

a. boxed up - construct a false wall to bring the wall forward (eats up precious floor space)

b. covered with carpentry works - not all walls will have the protruding beam, can create feature walls / cabinets at walls with the beam

c. older units don't have so many protruding beams, new flats has a lot coz hdb need to make the floor size look bigger

Another problem to level the false ceiling with the beam is that the connecting parts will wear out and possibly crack under pressure or vibration.

I had a feature wall that is levelled with the concrete wall, no matter how I mend it, there will always be a faint crack line. Luckily this is at the back of the feature wall; imagine two crack lines (one on each side of the beam) on your ceiling.