Ceiling Tiles
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Ceiling Tiles A Brief History
Dropped or drop ceilings tiles as they are sometimes named (especially in America) and better known to us Brits as suspended ceiling tiles were filed for a patent by inventor Donald A Brown on September the 8th 1958 and finally gained the patent on twenty third of May 1961 so for something that still looks bang up to date they are over fifty years yes half a century old.
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When I (being as the grand children say lived in the olden days) first left my job as a shuttering carpenter/joiner and started on my lifetime love of suspended ceilings and partitions it was 1970, and some ceiling grids consisted of galvanised T sections which we had to cut to size from 12ft lengths screw them together.
The tiles we made on site cutting them from 8 x 4 Sundeala boards (yes that's the stuff you see on school and office walls as pin boards) we then had to screw these ceiling tile on to the grid, the very same system is still to be seen today all these years later in many Woolworth, British Home Stores, Boots Chemists and many more, the only difference being the tile are made from Asbestos believe me I should know I fixed them all over the UK including Belfast during the troubles. |
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As the seventies rolled on so the ceiling tile industry grew and for many years even up to the crash of 2007/8 15% yearly growth was normal, even through the many downturns and recessions as more and more architects and other specifiers started designing suspended ceilings and partitions and dry ling into new and refurbished buildings.
From that era till now apart from colours and some snazzy designs nothing much has changed within the ceiling tile business, early on you had face patern fissure tile as pretty much the norm they came in 600 x 600mm and 600 x 1200mm mostly made by Armstrong world industries as it was known then and manufactured on the Team Valley trading estate Gateshead. Other large scale ceiling tiles manufacturers are USG who also have a ceiling grid design, CEP have some excellent systems,
Celotex as I remember were the cheap ceiling tiles alternative at the time and there were quite a few manufacturers came and went or became absorbed by larger rivals during this period.
From that era till now apart from colours and some snazzy designs nothing much has changed within the ceiling tile business, early on you had face patern fissure tile as pretty much the norm they came in 600 x 600mm and 600 x 1200mm mostly made by Armstrong world industries as it was known then and manufactured on the Team Valley trading estate Gateshead. Other large scale ceiling tiles manufacturers are USG who also have a ceiling grid design, CEP have some excellent systems,
Celotex as I remember were the cheap ceiling tiles alternative at the time and there were quite a few manufacturers came and went or became absorbed by larger rivals during this period.