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Unidentified ceiling material prevents recessed lighting installation

🏠 homepersonal problemSingle report ●●●●● severity 3/5

A homeowner installing recessed lighting is unsure if it is safe to cut into an unidentified material consisting of furring strips and a white plastic-coated particleboard found behind their ceiling drywall.

Who's affected: A homeowner

⚠️ Single report. This is one person's account. We mark it so until more voices confirm it.

What people do today

🔧 Fix this

Ideas a builder, maker or community group could start on:

  1. A mobile app that uses AI image recognition to identify common construction materials from user-uploaded photos.
  2. A crowdsourced database of regional home construction materials and common ceiling assemblies indexed by decade and location.
  3. A portable, non-destructive material testing kit for homeowners to identify hazardous substances like asbestos or formaldehyde in particleboard.
I want to build this

Real voices

“I can't find any info about what this particle board could be and whether or not it's safe to cut into this board to make room for my recessed lights.”

Source: Stack Exchange (diy) · CC BY-SA 4.0, user-contributed content from Stack Exchange; summarized and modified

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