How to fit a curtain track to a bay window ceiling video

Introduction to Curtain Installation

Hi. I'm Lee Stevens from ezecurtains.co.uk.

And I get lots and lots of people telling me my ceiling isn't strong enough to support a ceiling fixed curtain track. I need to know where the joists are so I can fix all my brackets into the joists. Your ceiling almost undoubtedly is going to be strong enough because I've fitted thousands of these Baytrax over the thirty years almost.

And also, the joists are never going to be in the right place to fit all your brackets.

If you watch my other fitting videos, you'll see how I approach this. You don't need to know where all the joists are because they're not going to be in the right place. So you can hear that's hollow. All ceilings are hollow or almost all ceilings, unless you've got a concrete ceiling, but almost nobody does in a domestic dwelling. So if you're hanging domestic sized curtains, even big ones, blackout, floor length, really wide, as long as they're not like four meters long and six meters wide, and you truly are super heavy stage curtains, but this website is not about those kind of curtains and those kind of tracks. It's about domestic sized curtains, domestic sized windows.

Fitting the Curtain Track

So you're going to present your track to the ceiling. You're going to screw all the screws in. If you have bad fittings, then you use the plugs that we supply. The plugs we supply with the screws will suit ninety five, ninety eight percent of the fittings that you need to do and give you a firm enough fixing.

You're almost certainly when you're doing all the brackets up into the ceiling and just driving the screws in, you're going to hit some timber in the ceiling. Fantastic. You only need to worry about the ones where you don't. The ones where you don't, then if our plugs are still not giving you a firm no fixing, which is highly unlikely, then there's a couple of other fittings here that we use.

Alternative Fittings and Tools

And you can find the links to these in this video. And also, if you're watching it in the right place, you'll see the links below the video.

Now use these. We only use these if our regular fittings fail, and that's almost never.

But it's handy to know where they are, where you can get them from. I get both of these from Screwfix. Nice and cheap. So start with the basics and then move on to these if you have to. Now at the end of the track, on each end, just within the ceiling, just within the bay, there's going to be a beam across the top of the ceiling.

Dealing with Metal Lintels

Now, almost certainly, in most houses now, you're going to find it's a metal lintel. If it's timber, fantastic. You just drive the screw in, you've got a good grip. If it's metal, you're going to need to use the drill bit that you can find in the link in this video that takes you to Screwfix.

And it's a three and a half mil high speed drill bit, and it will cut pilot hole into the lintel. You'll be able to use the screws we supply to then drive directly into that hole without using your plug. That will grip. If you've got a track that returns out to the bay on each side, almost certainly, it's going to be going into brickwork.

Fixing to Brickwork

So use the plug supplied, six mil masonry drill bit, drill the hole, fix your wall fixed bracket on the return.

So that's fundamentally it. Don't worry. You don't have to go upstairs and pull the floorboards up. You don't need to start looking, you know, where every individual joist is because they're not going to be in the right place to support your track.

Final Installation Tips

You're going to be moving your brackets to where the joist is, but it's not going to give your track the support to suspend your curtains from this track. So forget about that. Just follow the guide the fitting guide, and they will show you how to fit our tracks. And then also just use the links in this video to get the bits that you may need.

You don't have to buy all these straight away. Just nip out your local branch if you need them. But almost certainly, you're not going to need them other than these three and a half mil drill bits for piloting the lintel across the top. So your last bracket on each side before your track turns out to the bay.

If it's not turning out to the bay, then the end of the track here is going to be nice and secure to hang your curtains because it's going to be fixed into that metal lintel. And if it's a wooden lintel in a really old house, then fantastic. Don't need to do any drilling. You just screw the screws directly in and you got a super solid fixing.

Conclusion and Support

So I hope that helps. And if you have questions as you move along ordering, fitting, then just get in touch.