Shop ceiling suggestions

[Steve Sawyer]

I'm a little out of my element here - I have a basement woodworking shop that I'm renovating (getting more space). I took advantage of the Flooring forum to get some advice on that, but now I'm looking ahead to the ceiling after I get all the re-wiring done.

My basement joists are very low - about 84". I put a suspended ceiling in the adjacent rec room, and that was a nightmare. We have hot-water baseboard heating, and all the copper heating pipes (and many of the water pipes) run UNDER the joists. Because I had so little to work with (I had to clear the doors etc.) I couldn't put the grid any more than about 2-3" below the joists. With a lot of cussing, contortion and cutting tiles into smaller sections, I was able to get all the tiles into the grid around all of the plumbing obstructions.

At the shop end of the basement, all of the infrastructure - water and heating pipes as well as plumbing for the two main-floor bathrooms - come together, and I'd never get a suspended ceiling installed in that area.

I can't give up access, so whatever I put up has to be removable. What I took down was the old cellulose acoustical tile, and for 20 years every time we had to do some electrical or plumbing work I had to cut holes in it and fabricate patches. There are 1 1/2" furring strips on the bottom of the joists where the old tiles mounted, and I've left those intact, so all I have to do is screw something to those strips.

I've seen foil-faced insulated sheathing used in some garage shops. It looks good, the foil is reflective so lighting is enhanced, it's light and easy to cut into 2'x4' panels, and it's cheap - I can do the entire shop for a bit over $200.

My only concerns are 1) this stuff is a bit fragile, so any time I swing a board badly and smack the ceiling, I'm likely to damage it and 2) this stuff is not particularly flammable, but will burn if it gets hot enough, and it does give off poisonous gasses when it does. My thinking on that is that if there is a fire in my basement, I'm not gonna hang around long enough to get gassed!!

Anyway, I was wondering if there are other ideas that I should consider.

Thanks!

 

[kbs2244]

2 " should be enough for a suspended ceiling.
If you go with 2 foot square tiles you should be able to get enough angle to move the around.

 

[Steve Sawyer]

2 " should be enough for a suspended ceiling.
If you go with 2 foot square tiles you should be able to get enough angle to move the around.

Nope - that's 2" below the joists, with pipes running through that 2" gap. I cut about a quarter of the tiles in the rec room into 2' squares, and still had to do a lot of forcing and prying to get the tiles into the grid around all the plumbing. The shop area has pipes running below the joists across almost the entire area.

 

[rburke65]

I have the "T" bar ceiling in my basement but I have the flexible yellow Fiberglas backed ceiling tiles which are now all but impossible to find. They make it a lot easier to insert into the tight spaces.