I'm at my whits end trying to remove these basement ceiling tiles

[John]

I have a finished basement that was installed by the previous homeowner. I need to have access to the plumbing lines hidden by the ceiling tiles. First off the ceiling was installed so high that when I try to lift the tiles straight up many of them come in contact with furnace duct work, pipes and 2x4s. Second, a lot of the main frames aren't t frames but u frames which also prevent me from lifting them up. The secondary frame work are t frames. I figured there must be a key point somewhere in the ceiling where a tile will easily slide out and the rest would follow. I haven't found it. I can't figure how they installed it. Is there a way to get these tiles out or do I have to cut them out? What am I missing?

[philoÂÂ]

I don't know ...sorry. The ones in my kitchen all just came down by themselves real fast.

[Tony Hwang]

Hi, What was the command you gave them? Did you tell them nice or bark it out?, LOL!

[philoÂÂ]

I bought my "fixer upper" from a home repair guy. As bad as I am...I had to re-do everything that idiot did.

One day, as we were leaving the house my daughter yelled at me to fix the ceiling in the kitchen. She told me it was going to cave in.

I dropped her off and when I returned home could not open the door to the kitchen...so I went around to the front. The whole thing just came down. When I inspected the damage I noticed that he used tiny eye hooks for the drop ceiling and most of them went into the plaster and never even made it to the lathe.

After I told my daughter she was right...I took a crow bar and gutted the entire kitchen and put in 5/8 " drywall! That stuff is heavy.

[Robert Green]

"John"

John, you must be Lorie's husband

Her alleged email was:

"lorie"

[philoÂÂ]

X

I *think* those munged addys are from some home repair forum and not a Usenet account.

[Adam Kubias]

If they are the cheap drop ceiling tiles, just exacto knife it in half and glue it back together. I used to just break the tiles until I started being able to predict when one would break so now I cut it before it can.

[CRNG]

On Tue, 18 Mar 2014 22:44:01 +0000, John wrote in

If you cut them out, how will you get them back in?

Can you identify the manufacturer? Maybe you can contact them.

[Thomas]

It sounds like the frames were installed as the tiles were put in. That is one way to get that high up. Rip it all down and give yourself a lower ceiling. Save on heat and AC.

[sam E]

BTW, "whits" is a word. It means really little things.

[Robert Green]

They're only off by one digit.

"lorie"