basement HVAC soffit

[mattmeitzner]

Finishing my basement and done with the framing. I have one soffit that spans a 6" duct as well as an I-beam over the course of 25'. They're offset a little, but instead of making a turn in the soffit, I'm just installing one long soffit to enclose both. This will provide a little extra room to put recessed lighting in the soffit as well, which is needed. Since I can't purchase 25' 2x2's to build the soffit from, I used leftover 2x4's, ripped into 2x2's and OSB to add ridgidity. Because some pieces are 4' and others are 8', the soffit ended up not perfectly straight, although it's only about 0.5" off over the course of the entire 25' run. Is this the nature of building soffits, or if I buy 16' 2x2's and redo the entire thing, will it look much better? Any chance adding the drywall will "hide" the underlying issue, or is it likely to only make it worse or more obvious?

Thanks

[JohnnyC]

I think I know what you are talking about because I just built the same thing. If you could post a picture somewhere, that would help. I don't think buying longer lumber is going to help you much.

These are some of the things I did to get a straight soffit. Did you snap a straight chalk line on the overhead rafters? Did you overlap your 2x2 joints with the osb? Can you move the bottom of the soffit in or out by adjusting the horizontal pieces that are connecting to the wall on the other side of the sofffit? When you built the soffit, did you hang a straight mason line at the bottom of the soffit as a reference? Since its .5" off, will anybody notice other than you?

[mattmeitzner]

- it deviates at points by up to 0.5". Perhaps part of my problem is that the soffit is half up against a wall (staircase wall), adn half in the middle of the room - so that makes it a bit more difficult. Also, I'm essentially using the OSB as the height of the soffit, instead of having installed more accurately measured 2x2 cripples. The OSB is pretty straight, but anything cut with a circular saw (by me at least) is going to be less accurate than a measured miter saw cut. Still undecided on whether to take it down and redo it or not...

[Larry]

Don't sweat the small stuff. Over 25', the only person that knows this, is you. If you decided on doing something crazy, like putting up strips on the ceiling, then there would be a reference point to see how far off you were.

Walls are not perfect, most all rough framing done in wood is twisted, bowed, crowned or has some imperfection. Rarely when laying out a wall & standing it up, will it hit the chalk-line perfect the entire length.

[Ivan Vegvary]

Advice to any future soffit builders. I was going to surround a large room (30ft x 40ft) with a soffit all around. The idea was to bring down the 10 foot ceiling to 8 foot at the walls. While discussing this with my sheetrock installer (who was eager to get started and knows how slow I work) he said he'll take care of it when the come to sheetrock the new addition.

Okay, it's sheetrock morning and while 3 crews (6 people) are putting up the

200 sheets of drywall, my sheetrock wall frames in all of the soffits in about 1 hour. We're talking about 100 feet of soffit 18" vertical and 24" horizontal. He simply framed all of the soffits with the flimsy metal corners used for outside sheetrock corners. He screwed metal sheetrock corners to the ceiling joists 24" out from the wall. Cut a bunches of corners to about 18"+ and hung (screwed) them from this horizontal metal corner (all of them dangling like tinsel). Screwed more horizontal pieces on to the walls 18" down from the ceiling. Connected all of the dangling pieces with another horizontal member, added a few stiffeners and covered the whole thing with 1/2 inch drywall. He reminded me that this metal framing weighs nothing and is fast to install. Tin snips and screw gun is all it took.

BTW, the following also helped: He is very skilled, main area being drywall in commercial spaces. He is 6'-8" and does not use a ladder for 8' work. He had rotating laser set up in the middle of the room on a ladder and a bunch of books. Shimmed up the laser so the beam was exactly 8 feet above the floor. I swear, it took about an hour!!!

Ivan Vegvary (who saved himself days of cutting little 2by pieces of wood and nailing them together and getting it crooked)

[RicodJour]

Visit USG's web site and check out their suggested methods for framing soffits with metal track, angle and studs. It's far, far faster and you'll get better results.

R

[RicodJour]

I'm sure that your installer didn't use drywall corner bead, more likely metal angle that is intended for use in metal stud framing. It's a typical commercial installation. It requires very few tools, is easy to adjust and is easy for one man to install.

I have a 6'-8" buddy who's a contractor. It pisses me off every time I see him working on a ceiling or soffit and he's standing on the floor. Mutants should not be allowed in the building trades. ;)

R