How To Install A Suspended Ceiling In A Basement
If your latest renovation projection includes a new ceiling, don't panic at the thought of overhead drywall piece of work. In the correct situation, a suspended ceiling offers some existent advantages over the permanent variety. Beginning, ducts, pipes and cables hidden above a dropped ceiling remain accessible for repair or modification. And second, suspended ceilings are better sound barriers than drywall ceilings.
For the practice-it-yourselfer, though, the real bonus is easy installation that requires only simple household tools. Comprised of a metal grid that supports lightweight panels, a suspended ceiling is well within the capabilities of most homeowners. If you're worried about the institutional wait, drop-in ceiling panels have become more attractive in recent years, with a wide range of designs to choose from.
While suspended ceilings are non for everyone, or for every state of affairs, they brand a lot of sense in basements and in first-floor rooms with bathrooms overhead. If a leak appears in the overhead plumbing, a suspended ceiling tin can mean the divergence between a plush, time-consuming repair chore and a small-scale inconvenience.
All you need for a suspended ceiling is sufficient caput clearance. Requirements vary, only virtually codes stipulate a minimum vii 1/two-ft. ceiling height in new construction. Some codes, withal, will adjust a lower ceiling height if information technology'southward office of a renovation project, so it pays to inquire. You'll need roughly 4 in. of space between the erstwhile and new ceilings to tilt the panels in identify, and an boosted ii in. if you lot intend to install drop-in, full-panel fluorescent ceiling lights.
We installed our suspended ceiling in a wood-frame drywalled room, though concrete or concrete-block basement walls wouldn't have changed the installation much. In this example, simply use masonry screws instead of nails to secure the perimeter molding that supports the ceiling at its edges.
Choosing a organization
The installation steps vary from one manufacturer to the next, only not significantly. We chose an Armstrong Tegular Ceiling (Armstrong World Industries Inc., P.O. Box 173058, Denver, CO 90217). Tegular ceiling panels have a recessed flange that allows them to protrude beneath the grid roughly 1/four in. While these panels are more attractive, they do require careful trimming when a smaller panel is needed.
Once you've chosen a ceiling package, give some thought to the grid layout. While home centers and retailers volition be happy to work upwards a parts list, based on a scaled drawing of your space, yous should have a general sense of how the components go together earlier getting started.
Typical systems have an 50-shaped perimeter bracket, or molding, to back up the suspended ceiling at the walls. From this molding, long stringers, called chief runners, are installed every 4 ft. and run the length of the room. The ends of the master runners balance on the perimeter moldings and everything in between is suspended with wires secured to the joists higher up. Cross tees are installed beyond these runners at intervals of 24 in. This grid is all that'south needed to support two x four-ft. ceiling panels. With 2 x ii-ft. panels, an additional set of connectors divides each 2 ten four-ft. expanse.
Pace one: Setting the Perimeter
The get-go step is to determine the maximum superlative of the new suspended ceiling. If you don't plan to install a drop-in fluorescent fixture, measure downwardly about 4 in. from the existing ceiling joists and marking the wall. The four-in. space is just plenty to bending the tiles into place. (If yous do plan to install a drib-in fixture, identify the marking 6 in. from the joists.) At this marking, describe a line around iii sides of the room using a 4-ft. level.
Measure out down from the joists at several locations around the room to ensure that you lot'll have enough infinite above the console filigree at all points across the existing ceiling. If your ceiling joists don't lie on a level plane, make sure to measure down iv in. from the lowest betoken on the everyman joist. When the 3 perimeter lines are level and at the correct height, connect them with a chalkline on the remaining wall.
Stride 2: Setting the Perimeter
With the perimeter established, locate the wall studs and boom the perimeter molding in place and so that the peak of the molding aligns with the perimeter lines. Use 6d nails and avoid scuffing the painted surface of the molding. Cutting the molding to fit with tin snips. For long walls, barrel the ends of two pieces of molding.
Step 3: Setting the Perimeter
When you come to an inside corner, install the first length of molding tight against the corner and butt the 2nd length confronting the first.
Step 4: Setting the Perimeter
For outside corners, a mitered articulation is more than attractive. Using your can snips, cut both moldings at a 45 caste angle and secure them in place with 6d nails.
Step v: Installing the Runners
With the perimeter molding in place, install the main runners perpendicular to the joists and 4 ft. autonomously. The fob here is to lay out the panel filigree so that the ceiling appears balanced from side to side. Most rooms volition accommodate a number of full-size panels plus an edge gap that will require partial panels.
Measure beyond the room parallel to the joists and divide past the console length to get the number of full panels that will fit in the space. To determine the perimeter gap at each wall, subtract the sum of the panel lengths from the room dimension. If the gap is simply i or two in. short of a full panel, you may be able to start against one side wall and continue across to the reverse wall with full-size panels. If the gap is anything less, information technology's best to dissever it in ii, placing half on each side. If the gap is 18 in. wide, for example, it will look meliorate if both sides of the room have a nine-in.-wide row of partial panels. In this instance, offset your first principal runner nine in. from the wall, proceed across the room with total panels, and end with a main runner ix in. from the opposing wall.
A similar calculation should be fabricated in the reverse direction. Here, intersecting members, called cantankerous tees, are positioned in slots on each main runner. If you need to trim a few inches from the pb ends of the main runners to suit a row of partial panels, be certain to trim the same amount from each runner and so that the cantankerous tees will be parallel to the wall and the panel openings are square.
To install the main runners, measure out from the starting wall the adamant gap distance and snap a chalkline beyond joists. And so, mensurate 4 ft. from this line and snap a second line. Repeat this process in four-ft. increments until you reach the far wall.
Step 6: Installing the Runners
To support the main runners, screw modest eyebolts into every third joist along the chalklines. Then, fasten lengths of 16-judge wire to each eyebolt. Twist the wire at least 3 times around itself at the meridian. So, stretch string tightly beyond the room between perimeter moldings, about every 8 ft., so that the string is aligned with the bottoms of the molding. Use this string to level each primary runner as you hang it from its wires.
Set the lead finish of the runner on the perimeter molding and lower it until it touches the kickoff string. Sight across the runner to decide where to curve the get-go wire support. Bend the wire, feed it through the nearest hole in the runner, bend it upwards and twist it at least three times.
Step 7: Installing the Runners
Continue hanging the runners in this fashion until each is supported every 4 ft. If your room is longer than the runners, join them finish to end, using the slots and tabs congenital into the ends of each.
Step 8: Installing the Runners
Identify an additional wire back up near each of these joints. Trim the excess from the final length of runner with tin snips.
Stride 9: Installing the Runners
With the runners in identify, tie them together with the cross tees spaced ii ft. apart. The cantankerous tees take a hook on each end that fits into a slot in the runners.
Step x: Installing the Runners
If the arrangement you lot've chosen has 2 10 4-ft. panels, install the panels in the middle of the grid now to help square the assembly. If your organization has 2 x ii-ft. panels, install the 2-ft. connectors before moving on. These connectors parallel the runners and fit slots in the cantankerous tees. With the ii-ft. connectors in place, install plenty of the center panels to foursquare the filigree.
Stride eleven: Installing the Runners
With the filigree more than or less foursquare, cut and install pieces to connect the filigree with the perimeter molding. Again, the factory ends claw into the runner and cantankerous-tee slots while the cut ends rest on pinnacle of the perimeter molding.
Step 12: Adding Fixtures
If yous plan to install a full-console, drop-in fluorescent lite fixture, you'll need to provide some protection for the wiring that extends between the the electrical box connected to a ceiling joist and the fixture. Codes will require that these wires be encased in flexible metal conduit.
Starting with the fixture, mount a 90degree conduit/box connector in one of the channel knockouts in the fixture. Then, feed three fourteen-judge insulated wires (blackness, white and green) through a length of flexible conduit and into the aqueduct box. Fasten the conduit in identify by tightening the connector'south set screw. Bring together these lead wires to the fixture's leads every bit you would usually, connecting similar-colored wires.
Step 13: Adding Fixtures
Set the fixture in the grid in place of one of the panels, and connect the remaining end of the conduit to a blank, junction-box cover plate. Intermission the knockout from the plate and join it to the conduit with a standard box connector. Finish by making the wiring connections and fastening the plate to the box.
Step xiv: Ductwork and Diffusers
Heating ducts will also require special attention. In most cases, the job requires bringing the ductwork down to a level just above the top of the panel, cut an opening in the panel and inserting a diffuser.
If your duct ends in a rectangular boot, make sure the boot has side tabs that will permit y'all to screw through the diffuser and panel and into tabs in the duct boot. This may require a flake of custom sheetmetal work on your part, just it won't demand to be fancy.
If your ductwork ends in a downwardly facing elbow, or if you've had to bring your own duct to the room, you might opt for a circular diffuser with adjustable output. These plastic or metal diffusers are sold at most dwelling centers. Once again, the trick is in bringing the duct to the console.
To determine the best position, lay a level or a straightedge across the grid. And then, extend the duct down to a point merely in a higher place the panel. You'll also need to frame a structural back up beyond the joist space containing the duct so that it doesn't settle under its own weight.
Pace 15: Ductwork and Diffusers
With the duct set up, measure carefully from 2 sides of the grid and position the diffuser on the panel appropriately. Trace around the diffuser with a pencil and cutting along this line to brand the opening.
Pace 16: Ductwork and Diffusers
Finally, install the console, push the diffuser into the duct and screw information technology to the duct by working through an side by side opening in the filigree.
Step 17: Finishing Upward
When it comes to cut panels to make full the smaller perimeter openings, always cut with the finished side of the panel facing upward and always use a precipitous utility knife. Avoid using ability equipment--you'll create far too much cellulose dust and the job won't go done any faster.
Begin by measuring the filigree opening and adding about 3/eight in. for the new flange. Slice through the panel completely, using several passes if needed.
Pace 18: Finishing Upwardly
To create a new tegular flange, lay the flange of a consummate panel over the cut piece and scribe the new flange line.
Stride 19: Finishing Up
Cutting along this line, but only to half the panel's depth.
Stride xx: Finishing Up
And then, lay the knife on its side and piece into the panel from its border, at the aforementioned height equally the factory flange. This will remove just enough material to produce a custom flange. Install the cut console so the new, unpainted flange faces the wall.
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Source: https://www.popularmechanics.com/home/interior-projects/how-to/a168/suspended-ceiling-tiles-install/
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