Drywall ceiling

[efgh]

The proper way is to take down the plaster and lathe and then attach the drywall to the ceiling joists directly.

[noreaster]

I'm adding dry to my ceiling that is plaster and lathe. The joists go from right to left, the sheets will go from front to back. My thinking is that you should add strips ( I have to add them because the ceiling droops in one spot, so I'm leveling the whole ceiling) across the joints so when mounting the drywall you can screw into the joists and in between the joists ( to help the seams stay more rigid). What is the best (proper) way to place the strips and drywall compared to the joists TIA

[Bonehenge (B A R R Y)]

Does the weight of the lathe make the ceiling sag?

[noreaster]

[Bob W]

That's the way to do it. And it's lath, not lathe. A lathe is that "spinny" machine... know what I mean?

[noreaster]

If I take it all down, which way would you run the strips if needed? One of the joists is 24" across, the rest is about 16" centers.

[noreaster]

[noreaster]

I forgot to ask, which way would run the sheets? Not all my joists are 16" centers, one is 24"

[RicodJour]

The question is why is your ceiling drooping. Is it because the plaster has separated from the lath, the joists have sagged, or there's another problem. The one joist at 24" is a red flag. Before you go adding substantially more weight to your ceiling, you should investigate fully and find out what's the root cause of the problem.

Here's how to install ceiling strapping, aka furring:

others have said, removing the old ceiling is generally preferable.

R

[Bob W]

LOL :-)

[noreaster]

That one spot that is sagging feels pretty solid when I push up on it. In the dining room when I took off the square tiles, there was plaster missing. This house was built in the 40's. I could take off the plaster and lath but would have to find a wait to get the 4 x 12's up by myself w/o renting the drywall lift.

[mark]

[Greg O]

Remove the old plaster first, then the lath, trust me it is easier then ripping it all down! Run strapping across the exposed joists every 16 inches. Shim as needed to get them as level as reasonable. I say reasonable because with old houses you sometimes have to just accept the fact that it not possible get things level and true. Greg

[Rick Frazier]

Rent the drywall lift, get a helper and install all the sheetrock in a single day. I recently put up a complete ceiling inside a 32 foot by 48 foot building with inside pitch of 2" in 12" (scissor trusses on 24" centers, 4x8 foot sheetrock with long edge at right angles to the trusses. With one helper, it all went up in under 8 hours, including breaks, lunch and a six pack or so of beers each along the way, so the afternoon went slower than the morning, as you might expect... I don't do this sort of thing for a living, so am definitely NOT as fast as the pros. This ceiling started at 10' high at the low edge with peak at about 12' 8". We laid the peak first and worked down to the lowest edge.

After previously done the short stilts thing, and the short scaffold thing even on an 8 foot high flat ceiling, I wouldn't even think about putting up ANY overhead sheet goods without a sheetrock lift. They rent pretty cheap, are easy to use, and if you have one long enough, you could do the whole job by yourself and not be beating yourself to death doing it. After remembering four of us (late high school and college age) holding up sheets of 1/2" sheetrock and nailing them to the ceiling joists way back in the 70's, finishing out a garage, there had to be a better way. The lift is the obvious tool for the job. The hardest part of the whole process is loading the sheetrock on the lift, and after that all you do is flip it up flat, crank it up to the ceiling, and position it. Once in position, a little more crank on the lift to press it against the joists and you've got it in place while you screw in sheetrock screws at a liesurely pace. No bent and strained back trying to hold up one part while screwing or nailing as far as you can reach so the sheet doesn't fall down before you can get more fasteners in place... No bitching at the brothers holding up the other corners when you find out they couldn't hold the sheet on line so now you have to trim the next one.... and so on. I wish such equipment existed in the

70's, it would have made things a lot easier in the family, if you know what I mean... Today, in my 50's, any money I can spend to rent machines that save my back and make life easier is money well spent, particularly when I sit still long enough to remember the "old days" of my youth...

Others are right, you need to pull down the old plaster and lath, for two reasons. First, to determine and correct (if possible) the reaon for the current "sag", and second, to reduce the load on the ceiling that you'd have if you added the sheetrock. Given the older construction, I'd not want the added weight of the sheetrock in place, and besides, it would be nearly impossible to ensure the fasteners went into the joists instead of just the lath, which would make for problems down the road. I wouldn't be too concerned about the one place with a

24" joist spacing, if the truss structure looks appropriate. (Current trusses are 24" or 48" spacing, depending on design "snow load" and such. If the joists are actually part of engineered trusses you shouldn't have any problems. Even if they aren't, if the span isn't that great (say 12 feet), you may still not have any issues. If in doubt, have a qualified building engineer take a look and determine if the load is appropriate for the joist spacing and bracing. Even a couple hundred dollars would be well spent knowing things are up to current code.

Good luck, take every opportunity to let the machines do the work for you. Any time you can get a machine to lift, position and hold something like sheetrock in place while you take care of fastening it in a lesurely manner, the money you spent on the tool rental was cheap cheap cheap, particularly if you factor in the emergency room or doctor visit for the strained back from trying to hold up one end of a sheet while you reach out and drive screws, not to mention the days of pain or aches you endure during recovery from the strain. Yep, tools are our friends, in many ways...

--Rick

--Rick

[Tanus]

When you've determined for sure that subsequent work won't be necessary on the joists, I'd recommend that you put up 4x8 sheets, if you're doing it alone. With two T-braces, I've successfully installed 4x8 sheets, but I cringe at the thought of 12 footers.

Ok, "success" is a relative term. I did lose one sheet in a 17x20 room. I also didn't have the t-braces that i should have had. 12 sheets are a good idea for the pros, for people with the lifts, and for people not working alone. For the rest of us, 8 feet seems the maximum

Tanus

[Nova]

Make a couple "deadman" supports of the proper height to lift/hold the in place. A "deadman" is just a "T" made out of a couple of 2" x 4"'s. With the help of my wife and the deadmans we were able to put up 16's by ourselves.

[Jerome]

Tear it out. Shim/furr it. Go rent a lift. They break down into pieces so you can fit it into a small car if you have to. For around $40 a day it will make the job much easier. I recently installed 12 sheets of 4'x12' 5/8'' on a vaulted ceiling by my lonesome. The hardest part was getting them onto the lift. Absolutely no way I could have done it without the lift.

[LRod]

Some people will laugh, but drywall has "grain," believe it or not. For a demonstration of this, see Taunton's book on sheetrock. It will sag greater across the long dimension than it will across the short dimension. Now read why this is important to you:

Because you have a mix of spacing, I'd suggest furring strips on 16" centers. Also, sheetrock people usually recommend 5/8" on ceilings to minimize sag (may even be code). My 35 year old ceilings have noticable (with lights on) sag with 16" spacing and 3/8" thickness.

Regardless of how you'd *like* to do it, with your joists running crosswise (right to left), furring will effectively force you to run your drywall 90° to what you want/should without furring. In other words, if you were rocking directly to the joists, the sheets should be installed with the long side perpendicular to the joists (long dimension front to back)--your stated preference.

Now, although theoretically you could still run the drywall "front-to-back" (because of the multiples-of-16" dimensions of the rock), if you take into account the "grain" of the rock, you can see you will need to run the rock left-to-right, i.e., long dimension parallel to the joists.

By the way, 5/8" will make you think in terms of a lift, as well--it's heavy. So long as you'll be using a lift, you're back to thinking about 12 footers, again. It kind of depends on the dimension of the ceiling, but you could save as much as 15-20% time and effort taping and mudding difficult butt joints.

One other thing: edge support. Along the walls which are perpendicular to the joists (or furring strips, if you use them), you'll have plenty of support for the edges of the rock. On the other two, you won't. In new construction, they rock the ceilings first so that the wall rock can be butted up to the ceiling rock, thus supporting the edges of the ceiling rock. You may want to consider bridging the joists along the two parallel walls. Fur close to the wall to provide that missing support, or screw into those bridges directly if you don't fur.

Oh, yeah. Screw. Period. Especially with 5/8". Get/rent a screw gun. Trust me. It's a gazillion times easier and faster, although you can get by with an inexpensive attachment for your drill. If you don't get a gun, a cordless is generally a better tool than a corded, because it's almost instant off. A corded drill tends to "wind down" some when you release the trigger, thus making the guaging of proper drive depth a hit-or-miss affair, which might be marginally workable on walls, but isn't acceptable on ceilings. You don't want to tear the paper by going too deep with the screw.

[Hoosierpopi]

NOT SO FAST; NOT SO "PROPER"

When you have UNEVEN ceiling joists, the approach you appear to have mentioned of installing 1 x 2" (or 1x3") strips perpendicular to the run of the joists i correct.

Drill holes in the strips for nailing and use shims to assure that these strips are level (bottom surfaces all in the same horizontal plane) and set 12" or 16" (max) O.C.

I used construction adhesive to secure the shims in place (on one or both sides of the nail/screw fastening these strips to the joists) after getting everything level. THen screwing/nailing the strips firmly to the joists.

Adhering the dry-wall to these strips so that the end/butt joints fall on a strip will make those joints easier to obscure with mud - though it takes a bit of planning.

I also used dry-wall adhesive on the stips to secure the sheet-rock to them - reduces pull out and noise.

HFT sells a dry-wall mud splatter gun thing ($19 on sale) that allows you to spray mud on the ceiling so as to really hide any imperfections in the mudding and reduce the need for sanding/finishing while providing an interesting look. You can also "texture" the ceiling using a LONG NAP roller and wet mud - more time consuming and a different texture.

In a Kitchen (where grease is an issue) or a shop (where dust is an issue) the smoother ceiling finish may prove preferable and easier to clean.

HFT Also sells an adjustable support pole thing for $8.99 on sale that will help hold the panels in place if you cannot secure sufficient helpers or a dry-wall lift (rental).

Rent or buy a dry-wall screw gun for the project.

Enjoy

[BDBConstruction]

It doesnt matter if the ceiling is to be smooth or textured the first two coats still have to be smooth, clean, and sanded. Many people think that texture will "hide" poorly, sloppy, taping but it wont. You will still see every joint through the texture especially in low angle lighting. Though we dont use them this is especially true with rolled (thin) textures.

Prep textured and smooth ceilings identically. Only difference is the final coat.

Mark