I'm finishing my basement with 1x3s on the ceiling to attach wallboard. Unfortunately, two of the ceiling joists are about 1/2 inch lower than every other joist. They aren't sagging--they were just put in (with hangers) too low.
What's the best way to deal with this so that I can have a level ceiling? I'm thinking about running a 1/2" shim piece between the joists and the 1X3 on all but the two low joists. Will this work?
bob
If the joists are set lower than all the other joists, I should think they are not supporting the loads they are supposed to support. I'd consider having them set at the correct level. This would address what appears from your post to be a structural flaw. TB
That would work but unless this is a really small room I would run the 1 x 3 normally across all the good ones. Where the 1 x 3 hits a low joist I would cut the 1 x 3 just short of the joist, nail a 2 x 4 block to the joist and adjust it so the 1 x 3 was at the correct height.
Steve.
An excellent answer to the problem!
Is the floor above bowed down at the location of the low joists, or are the joists taller than the others. If the floor is sagging at the low joists, it may be possible to jack them into proper position. Bill
wallboard.
hangers) too
You could use resilient channel (metal stud) and cut them to go around the lower floor joists. It's quick, cheap and improves noise separation.
I think you should explain a bit more about those two lower joists. Are you saying that the bottoms, and inferrentially the tops, are set lower? Or do you mean that two of the joists are deeper and were set lower to allow the tops to be in plane?
RNo, there's no sagging of any kind. Basically, the people who built the house were incompetent--they put the hanger half an inch lower because the
2x8 was a bit wider than it should have been--probably just cheap cuts of wood.It's a really small area--about 8X8.
Better off cutting two correctly sized joists and replacing the oversized ones (if they are oversized). Alternatively adjust the hangers. I would like to be more sympathetic but a mistake has been made and unless this is remedied then no matter what you do, the mistake will still be there and a lumpy ceiling will be reminding you of that point until eternity.
Cut some short straight timbers and temporarily fix them across the correctly positioned joists and then lay your (newly positioned) joist on the cross pieces and fix the hangers and that will ensure they are all the same depth for a flat ceiling.
S
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